Another good flight

Victor and I enjoyed another really good flight in 77ASY yesterday having missed a couple of good flying days previously because Malbec was too waterlogged. Here’s the route that we took, taking in Condat, Sarlat-Domme and Castillonnès.

We could only overfly Belvès because it’s currently closed to visiting aircraft until 21 March while it also dries out. We also originally intended a landing at Galinat, but ran out of time because we spent more time than we expected chatting with people that we met along the way.

As well as being good fun, my plans for these short local flights are to get a feel for how the aircraft handles in all phases with Victor as passenger. I’m hoping that we’ll be able to get a good few flights in together this summer going further afield as it’s unlikely that Victor will be able to otherwise under his own steam.

However, he represents quite a significant amount of extra weight meaning that his presence changes the Savannah’s flight characteristics quite a bit and with Malbec being so short at 160 metres, this is especially relevant in the landing phase.

Having got used to flying and landing 77ASY solo, our first landing together at Malbec a couple of weeks ago showed that to be so. It was not helped by Jean-Michel, our new airfield member, standing in the middle at the top of the runway waiting to take off in his flexwing while we were on final, which contributed to my taking my eye off the ball, but in any event, I landed harder than I would have liked.

This time around, with my now having completed ten landings or so with Victor on board and having got more of a feel for the aircraft with the extra weight, the results were considerably better but still with a bit of room for improvement. But my feeling is that if I can land the Savannah smoothly at Malbec with the extra weight on board, I’ll be able to do so just about anywhere we’re likely to visit.

So first off Condat. ‘RAS’, as we say in French, or nothing to report with a pretty uneventful approach and landing this time around. After our experience last time, I made doubly sure on this occasion that 77ASY’s flaps were set and locked before landing, having had to go around the last time when they snapped back off just before we were going to touch down.

Then on to Sarlat. We tucked in behind the Club Robin on downwind for runway 10 and when I saw him pass low over the runway without even touching his wheels and commence another circuit, I made sure that I turned in early and landed well down the runway so I could clear it before he landed again. After we’d both parked up, I asked the Club’s instructor in the r/h seat if we could get a cup of coffee in the club house and not only did he give us a thumbs-up, but he also served us and took our money – 2€ for two coffees, so hardly a rip-off.

For some reason, I’d previously always had the idea that the aero-club at Sarlat-Domme was not welcoming to ULMs but this certailny wasn’t the case yesterday and it’ll be interesting to see if we are received with the same hospitality on future occasions now that we know what’s possible.

I also signed the visitors’ movements book for the first time yesterday. The issue has never arisen before and it was me who asked the question, so in future, now that we know there is one, we’ll be able to use that as the excuse, if needed, to get us through the door and half-way towards the coffee machine 😉

Then onwards again to Castillonnès via Belvès. This was the worst leg of the whole flight because we were flying on a south-westerly heading into the sun. Even so, it was noticeable how much higher the sun already is compared to my previous flights earlier in the year.

We were going to overfly Belvès but while we were approching the airfield, I noticed a small red aircraft just about to join downwind for runway 11. So I gave him and it a wide berth and lucky that I did because otherwise we’d both have become confused.

I lost sight of him for a short time and when I spotted him again, he’d turned around and was flying in the opposite direction on downwind for 29. And this despite 11 being the preferred runway when, as yesterday, there is little or no wind.

Something weird happened just as we were coming up to Castillonnès. My Asus tablet running Memory Map has been faultless the whole time that I’ve had it, performing perfectly for all of my local flights here in France and for my trip to and from the UK last year. However, just as we approached Castillonès, the Memory Map display suddenly switched for no reason to Google Maps, which was no use at all in helping us to locate the airfield.

Fortunately, being a belt, braces and spare pair of trousers man, I had the route programmed into my mobile phone that also has the Memory Map app installed on it, and within a few seconds it was running with Victor holding it where I could see it. I switched the tablet back again after landing but still have no idea why it did what it did. However, it clearly demonstrated the value of having a working back-up handy and from now on I’ll ensure that I never take off without one.

As previously mentioned, our original plan was to drop in at Galinat before returning to Malbec but we had to drop the idea because we’d spent too long chatting with new friends at Sarlat-Domme and old ones at Castillonnès. So then it was straight back to Malbec where we had a fairly uneventful landing at the end of a flight lasting 1 hour 48 minutes – but which had actually taken us the best part of a whole afternoon. But then again, that’s half of the fun of flying ULMs in France 🙂