First flight from Galinat

If someone were to ask me what most distinguishes flying in the Dordogne from flying where I was before, say, in south-east England, I’d say that it’s the variety and shear number of insects that are attacking you continuously while you’re preparing and pre-flighting your aircraft. And they really mean business. They are constantly going for your eyes, mouth and ears and only take your arms and legs as second choice. And some of them are such hardy little whotsits that even when you swat em really hard against your skin, they just shrug it off and come back for more, even more determined than they were before 😐

So that’s what I faced this afternoon when I was getting 56NE ready to go at around 5.00 pm. I would have liked to have flown at around 9.30 am because the air was so cool, fresh and still, but I’d promised to give Regis a hand to try to sort out a brake problem on his Zenair this morning. Wim was there too because although he had planned to fly early, he’d encountered a problem that sounds like either fuel starvation or possibly a split carb rubber, that had prevented him taking off. We finished off at Regis’s at about lunch time, so after I’d returned home and had a light meal, I got myself ready to fly later in the afternoon, when it was becoming cooler (30 degrees Celsius today, 33 degrees tomorrow) and a bit less thermic than it undoubtedly was in the full heat of the day.

So there I was sitting on the runway at about 5.20 pm with a small audience who had noticed 56NE taxying as they were driving past. Not having taken off from Galinat before, as I’d had plenty of time, I had walked the whole length of the runway to make sure that there were no potholes or any other surprises. In the dry weather we’ve been having, the ground is like concrete but I learnt my lesson with the MYRO incident and don’t aim to have a repeat performance if I can avoid it. I need to adjust my wheel brakes because the toe brake levers are travelling too far for the brakes to hold properly, and with the slight down-slope at Galinat, I couldn’t do a proper mag check at 3000 rpm without beginning to accelerate down the runway. I’d done one previously after starting the engine, though, so no real problem, but it’s something that I need to fix.

Because of the problem with my little 5″ GPS, I’d loaded the route I intended to fly into my 7″ one. The trouble is that the latter has a screen that’s far too dark and in the afternoon light, it appeared practically invisible when I checked it as I climbed away. So not a lot of good then, leaving me the option to do a circuit and land or do a more abbreviated local flight that would allow me to use local features to find my way back to the airfield. I chose the latter – what the heck, in for a penny, in for a pound. I soon passed over my first planned feature, the Chateau de Belcayre on the north bank of the River Vézère. It looked even more beautiful from the air than I’d expected, but I couldn’t take a photograph because my workload was already higher than I’d planned for and there was no need to make even more demands on myself.

Wim smiles when I say how useful my little GPS is, but he’s been flying locally for over 20 years, knows the area like the back of his hand and doesn’t even need a chart. I missed my little GPS but every now and again could just make out my position and heading on the 7″ one, although I could never have used it to fly down through France as I did with the other one. It was an experience all of its own flying here – one minute the valley was far below the aircraft and the next the trees felt as though they were only just under the wheels as I flew over a hill (they weren’t of course, they have to be more than 150 metres below to stay legal if there’s a house or structure on the hilltop 😉 ).

I had the lovely little village of St Leon sur Vézère under my left wing so I knew where I was, and then decided that I’d turn to the right and see if I could find the airfield. Wim had told me about a hilltop water tower that is just to the west of Galinat and I soon spotted it, then sure enough, there was the airfield with its runway and hangar. The air was still a bit bumpy, so I decided that the best thing would be to return and land and try again tomorrow morning when it will hopefully be a repeat of today. So that’s what I did. Although there was a bit of a tail-wind, the landing was uneventful. I kept my speed up (normal approach speed is 80 kmh) just in case the sink/lift/windshear in the valley got a bit twitchy, but no problem and the touchdown was fine, if not exactly a greaser 🙂

The flight was only 20 minutes, but it was new and exciting and I enjoyed it. A few more like that I and hopefully my familiarity with the local area and conditions will come on in leaps and bounds. Something I must be careful of is the sloping ground – I taxied to my tie-down spot and went too far up the hill and when I switched the engine off, 56NE tilted back onto its tail skid. No harm done of course, but something to avoid in the future. It was only a short flight, but it was a big leap forward for me. The trouble was that removing and replacing the covers took more than twice as long as the flight itself, so I need to go a bit further afield next time to make the effort worthwhile. I’ll have to see what I can come up with 😉