Just right!

That’s the only way to describe how things went today, despite a couple of minor hiccups which I’ll mention later. Nature has really come alive down here now. Everything is just so vibrant and green and this afternoon at Galinat, I was enchanted by a Song Thrush singing his heart out just for the joy of it. Everything was just as it should be for a perfect flight; good visibility, hardly any wind and a temperature in the mid-20s. I took off at about 5.15 pm when it was still around 25 degrees Celsius and while I was driving home just after 7.00 pm, it was still over 21 degrees.

It didn’t take me long to plan a flight for today – head north to Terrasson, turn north-west for Hautefort, which I’ve never been to, and then head back south to Galinat via Fanlac. The following image shows the route.

My first problem came when I tried to export the route into my little satnav. I was really annoyed to find that I couldn’t get a connection between the mobile device and my computer, just as happened before with my last little satnav. I know from that experience that although it’ll still work as a car satnav, it’s about as good as a brick now for aircraft navigation purposes as there’s no way that I know of recovering it. I think the damage may have been caused by connecting it to my PC while it was switched on, but I don’t know for sure. Pity, but there’s no point crying over spilt milk. Luckily I still have a larger satnav that still works. I prefer not to use it, though, because having a larger screen its display is darker and a bit harder to see. But never mind, it was OK for today, so I got it set up and was ready to go.

By this time it was mid-afternoon, not a bad time to go as it would have allowed most of the thermic bumps to dissipate. I was in the middle of uncovering 56NE ready to be pre-flighted when I suddenly realised that I’d forgotten to bring the pitot tube with me, that I’d taken home to clean after my recent insect-related incidents. Nothing for it but to go back and get it – lucky that I don’t live too far from Galinat, isn’t it. It took less than half an hour and after re-fitting it, it was time for me to try something else.

When I was flying back in the UK, I used to like mounting my little Canon camcorder on the aircraft so I could record my good flights. I haven’t been able to since I’ve been in France because I’ve been unable to find a mount to fit onto 56NE’s fuselage tubes. Well, I got hold of something from Ebay just recently which turned out to be faulty (wouldn’t lock properly) but I filled it with superglue and thought I might as well give it a go today. Securely attaching it to the airframe was a bit of a challenge but after a few minutes, I managed to get an arrangement that looked as though it would work. And when I was ready to go at just before 5.15 pm, I switched the camcorder on, crossed my fingers and took off.

Everything went just as planned and I was delighted to see that I now had an airspeed indicator. In fact, I think that my pitot cleaning efforts did a world of good, because the gauge is now much more responsive than before and also it’s showing a higher indication of cruise speed. The gauge must previously have been under-reading and this explains why my flights have always taken less time than I thought they would! First, north-east past Terrasson up to the little village of Perpezac-le-Blanc. Just a charming little village in lovely countryside, as the following image shows.

Then a left turn to head up to Hautefort, which I’ve never been to before, either by road or in the air. On the way, a typical little Dordogne hamlet caught my eye and I took the following picture of it.

And then I continued on to Hautefort, which I could see in the sunshine in the distance. I didn’t know what to expect, but I had the impression that Hautefort was quite a big place. But it turns out that I was wrong. Here’s a picture that I took as I approached it.

‘Haute fort’ translates as ‘high fort’ and it turns out that that’s what’s actually there – a large and imposing chateau on high ground over the village. Here’s another shot that I took as I flew past it as I turned south onto the next leg to head back to Galinat.

My route took me past yet another little group of houses that I thought was very typical of the Dordogne and once again I took a shot of them

The leg from Hautefort to Fanlac took about ten minutes and although I have a shot of Fanlac that I took several months ago, I took another because of the sheer vibrance of the green surrounding the village.

Galinat was still several minutes flying time away, but I could already see the strip in the distance as I passed by Fanlac. So yet another long, long final and an uneventful landing. I checked the camcorder afterwards and I found that it had made a full recording of the flight. Now I just need to process and edit it and I can’t wait to put together my first video of a flight here in France. And as soon as I do, I’ll post it on here, of course 😉