Even better than I’d hoped!

Well, we got our high of 22 degrees Celsius later in the afternoon as had been forecast. When I looked out of my window this morning, the sun still hadn’t had a chance to burn the mist off, although the vis wasn’t actually that bad, especially compared to what we’ve been used to just lately. So I decided to bide my time. I took things easy, enjoyed a leisurely breakfast, re-planned my flight to make it a bit longer than I’d originally intended and put 400 ml of 2-stroke oil into one of my empty 20 litre jerry cans. Then I went off to Intermarché to pick up some petrol and a few other things and returned home for lunch. In the meantime the vis had improved considerably, to well over 15 miles (24 kms) so when I eventually left for Galinat at about 2.20 pm, I knew that all being well, I’d be in for an excellent first flight of 2014.

I thought that I might be able to get off by 3.30 pm but it wasn’t to be. I spent longer than usual giving 56NE a thorough pre-flight check as the last time I’d flown it was on 31 December, but aside from needing to add a small quantity of water to the rad, nothing was amiss. I’d taken my little Canon camcorder with me with the aim of recording the flight but I wasted quite a bit of time trying to get yet another crappy Chinese-made camera mount to work that I bought on Ebay some months ago. Why I keep wasting time on such rubbish I do not know, the only point in their favour is that at least they are so cheap that you lose hardly any money when they end up not working. They never do seem to work, and this one was no different. When it was clamped onto a tube, the head still rotated quite freely (OK, with just a little bit of pressure) and so would have been totally useless for its intended purpose of firmly mounting any form of camera while in motion. Oh well… 😐

While I was dodging around under the wing, I also managed to bob up right into my pitot. Now 56NE’s pitot tube is nothing like the overly complex, namby-pamby arrangement that you have on X-Airs in the UK which bend and/or break as soon as you walk into them, as did the one on my friend Ken’s aircraft when the BMAA inspector did exactly that at permit time. No sir, 56NE’s one fights back, and that’s just what it did taking a nice slice out of the top of my head!

But I eventually did get off at exactly 4.00 pm and as I climbed away from Galinat, I turned left to get straight onto my planned route, which I’ve shown a pic of below.

My general intention was to head off to the north-west in the general direction of Périgueux, which was the last sector that I still had to cover. My first heading took me to Fleurac and Wim and Sophie’s house, and Wim phoned me later to say that he’d seen me fly over. Then I planned to turn right a bit to take me towards Boulazac, which is on the eastern outskirts of Périgueux and not that far from Périgueux Bassillac airport which I did not wish to get too close to today. So I then intended to turn right towards Fossemagne, which I’ve flown over previously, and then head south to fly over my house, before returning to Galinat via the overhead of Thonac.

As I headed north, the sun was on my left and it therefore wasn’t worthwhile taking any pictures, but I enjoyed seeing places like Les Versannes below me which I now know well, as it’s on the main road that I take from Rouffignac to Périgueux. However, after I’d turned right having reached my planned northern-most limit, it was a different story, and here’s a shot I took heading east towards Fossemagne.

With the small town of Thenon in the distance, I then turned right again to head for my house. I was quite surprised to find that I could see where it was from quite a distance away, the reason being that the farmer has just ploughed a field at the end of my road on the side of the hill and the newly turned earth was clearly visible. Here’s a shot approaching Lieu dit Le Bousquet, where I live, from the north.

The next two pics show my and my neighbours’ houses more or less in centre frame. I circled right round before heading off to Thonac and on the second circuit, I spotted my neighbour Michel waving to me from his garden. It’s a bit different here compared to the UK, where when you fly over your and your neighbours’ houses, they come out and shake their fists at you 🙂

I was soon back in familiar territory above Thonac, but as I’d returned quite a bit sooner than I’d anticipated, I decided that I’d fly a wide circle around the village. While doing so, I grabbed a couple of shots of the Chateau de Losse on the north bank of the river Vézère to the east of Thonac, between the village and Montignac, and here’s one of them.

I flew my usual long final approach into Galinat starting from over Thonac, a distance of nearly 2.5 miles (4 kms). As Galinat is half-way up a hillside, there’s a pronounced dip in front of the runway threshold. As you approach it, you usually experience lift followed by sink, but today I only got lift. So I ended up just closing the throttle and sticking the nose down, and although this increased my airspeed for landing, this didn’t matter because the runway has plenty of length. As a result, I flared and floated for quite a distance, eventually touching down with a ‘greaser’ about half way along, which I was very pleased with having not flown for nearly 3 months 😀

My flight had lasted for 50 minutes. The conditions were actually better than I’d hoped for, with good vis and fairly smooth air. The next two days will probably be a bit different as we’re expecting lower temperatures, around 15/16 degrees Celsius, as a cold front passes through from the north. But I topped 56NE’s tanks up before I tied it down and put its covers on, so I’m all ready to go for the next time. It can’t come soon enough 😉