Come on, own up!

Who nicked Cavarc? I flew all the way down there, as planned, only to find that when I got there, I couldn’t see the airfield! So who nicked it? It was a bit frustrating but I decided that under the circumstances, I’d just head back to Galinat, which is what I did.

I phoned Victor when I got back and he said that I more or less flew over the windsock at Cavarc, which didn’t surprise me in the least. There’s a lake just north of the airfield and having found that, I flew out over it and then turned onto the various legs for a circuit, and as I’d remembered the features from a few weeks ago, I was on the button. But when I was on the downwind leg, which Victor confirmed I had been, I was danged if I could see the runway. So at that point I decided to head for home. My thinking was that even though I’d started with over 40 litres in the tanks, this was the best thing to do in an unfamiliar aircraft with unknown fuel consumption and endurance.

The flight had only taken about 35/40 minutes from Galinat as expected, but I thought that as this was the first time I’d ventured farther afield, I’d prefer to have time in hand at the Galinat end in order to find the field again and land rather than burn fuel over Cavarc in what might have been a fruitless search. I was also relying on my 7″ GPS which I’d mounted at high level to avoid reflections, but its performance still left a great deal to be desired and I must replace it soon with another 5″ model with a nice bright screen to make cross-countries like this a lot easier.

I’d started the morning off by checking 56NE over and doing two jobs on it. First, I re-tensioned the wing covers by tightening up the webbing straps that link them. I knew that I’d probably have to do that because it says in the X-Air manual to re-tension them if the wings have been re-rigged, after one flight. I also adjusted my brake cables to make my toe brakes more effective. Not enough, as it happened, so I’ll need to pull some more cable through the adjusters next time. While I was working, Regis turned up with his ‘debroussailleuse’ to trim the weeds inside his old hangar framework and also we had a couple of landings, the first by a CT variant (I think) and the second by an old Sky Ranger. I introduced myself to the CT crew who, after chatting with Christian for a bit, who had also arrived, took off again before I did so myself at 11:45 am.

The flight down to Cavarc was great fun after I’d settled down and relaxed as my confidence in 56NE steadily grows. The scenery was beautiful but as by now the air was already beginning to get pretty bumpy with a temperature of around 25/26 degrees Celsius, once again I didn’t think it wise to be turning my attention to taking pictures. I stayed more or less dead on track according to my GPS history and returned to Galinat after my short but fruitless search for the airfield on the reciprocal of the outbound track so I was able to recognise many key features along the way. I’m pretty sure that Wim’s water tower that pin-points the location of Galinat was visible from some way out but I decided that rather than just locate the airfield and land, I’d do a few minutes over the local area. I quite easily recognised the road out of Les Eyzies going up to the village of Thonac and quickly found Thonac itself. After circling around a few times so I can get to recognise the local features, I turned my attention to finding Galinat, spotting it quite quickly and setting myself up for a straight-in approach.

When I landed, there was nobody else there, mainly because it was 1:15 pm and therefore lunch time. So my flight time was exactly 1 hours 30 minutes and when I checked the tank contents, I estimate that there was the best part of 20 litres remaining. So that gave a consumption of only 20/22 litres approx in 1.5 hours, or around 15 litres an hour, which I was very happy with. I had been up to just under 2000 feet on the QNH but had spent most of my time at around 1500 feet. I’d passed over some gorgeous scenery and some lovely villages and had been able to watch the canoeists on the Dordogne and the Vézère in the beautiful bright sunlight that had made the water sparkle. I’d also ventured quite a way from home and landed back safely again, so apart from not landing at Cavarc (having found it, darn it), I rated the flight as a success. A landing at Cavarc can come on another day and with a bit of luck, when I’m a bit more confident and organised, I’ll be able to take a few pictures too, eh Russ 😉