My last flight of 2021

And it was in the X-Air, mainly because it hadn’t been flown for too long – since 20th August to be exact – and needed to get some air under its wings and some charge into its battery. My original plan was to take off from Malbec and fly south-east down to Figeac where I’d do a touch-and-go. I’d then head back north west to Sarlat where I’d do another touch-and-go before returning to Malbec.

The whole flight was to have taken about 1 hour 45 minutes but I was plagued with problems just getting everything ready to go. For a start I had to remove both aircraft from the barn, which took longer than I’d planned because I got drawn into something else. Then I had to do two trips to Carrefour to pick up fuel because I needed 35 litres and although I had one empty jerrican, the other had fuel in it and for the life of me I couldn’t remember if it had oil added or not.

And then, to cap it all, when I returned to the caravan and went to print off my chart, my Canon printer that has been working for ever refused to print. Luckily I also have my large Epson printer in the caravan and was able to print it on that, but I still lost another half an hour because of it. And it didn’t end there. When I’d taken off already a lot later than I’d have liked, my GPS let me down and I had to return immediately to Malbec to sort the problem out.

It wasn’t serious, just something I couldn’t do in the air while flying single handedly, but it resulted in another 15 minutes lost, so when I finally did get airborne I was already considering cutting the flight short. My mind was finally made up while I was approaching Figeac and it was evident from the radio traffic that the whole world and his brother (and one sister as well, actually) were flying circuits there.

That was good news in one way because it meant that flying might now be getting back to some kind of normality post-Covid, but it was bad news for me, because I didn’t fancy getting embroiled in my slow X-Air in a circuit full of fast GA traffic. So at about three-quarters of the way to Figeac I decided that I’d do a gradual right hand turn to intersect what would have been my track from Figeac to Sarlat and shorten the flight. It turned out to be a good decision in the long run as I ended up packing the X-Air away in the barn and putting its covers on while the dusk was becoming darker and darker.

I shot a GoPro video of the whole flight and managed to capture both take offs and both landings, which I was very pleased about as usually the battery runs out before I get back to Malbec. Otherwise I took fairly random shots from the air with my Coolpix still camera which turned out not to be that impressive because of the terrain’s boring winter colouring and the very unflattering quality and angle of the winter sunlight. The first three shots below were lifted from the GoPro video and show the first take off, the landing back following the immediate return and the second take off.

The following pics were all taken pretty much at random using my little Nikon Coolpix. Apart from one or two they’re not that noteworthy so except for the ones I’ve picked out below, I’m not even going to bother trying to identify where they were taken or what they’re of 🙂

This shot shows Souillac in the far distance.

The next three shots are of the magnificent 12th century Chateau Beynac perched on its promontory overlooking the River Dordogne. I circled around it but was at 2500 feet which was a bit too high really for good photographs. It was fortunate actually that I’d decided to fly at that altitude. The majority of private pilots trundle around at 2000 feet (it’s the same in the UK) and being higher or lower helps to avoid tangling with one. And to prove my case, a few minutes before I got to Chateau Beynac, a light aircraft went swooping across my nose about 500 metres in front of me descending to fly over the river at low level. It was caught on the video too.

And finally after about 1½ hours I got back for a safe landing at Malbec. Here’s a shot that I took of 24ZN in the area in front of the barn shortly before I turned it round and pushed it in (with some difficulty over the mud…) before putting its covers on in the gathering gloom.

So that was the end of my flying for 2021, a disappointing one as I only managed a dismal total of 8 hours 20 minutes. This was my worst year since 2013 shortly after I came to France and had lost MYRO and was even worse than 2017 when I was receiving chemo.

But the upside is that there were good reasons for the shortfall, to do with the sale of my old house and my plans for the construction of my new one. The latter will come to fruition in 2022 (my builder has assured me that work should begin in the second half of January) so I should have a happy new year to look forward to.

So may I wish A Happy New Year to everyone who’s still following me here on My Trike and reading about my life and exploits here in France and hope that all of your hopes and plans for yourself and your loved ones for 2022 come to fulfillment too.