La Rochelle – at last!

A weather window finally materialised yesterday for me to fly up to la Rochelle in the Charente to have my transponder refitted in my Savannah and have its avionics signed off for another 5 years. And the weather window was not just suitable. Compared to other recent flights the weather was fantastic in both directions making for a safe, comfortable and above all, enjoyable flight.

As the winds were light, the flight took under two hours in each direction and having taken off just after 9.00 am, even though the skies were more or less cloudless on the way up with bright sunshine, there was no time for thermals to build up and the flight conditions were ideal. Initially I was more concerned about the screen misting up before I could take off but after cleaning it twice beforehand I got away without incident.

Mist was still hanging over the ground after take off and in the early stages of the flight north and as I flew abeam Perigueux Bassillac airport I could see that it was in a small valley and still totally obscured by mist, so no chance for any VFR only pilots who might have wanted to take off from there.

Even so the mist was beginning to dissipate by the time I passed abeam Perigueux itself and Leroy Merlin and the Auchan supermarket were both bathed in sunlight as I flew by.

I took quite a few photos as I flew north and here’s a lovely view with la Rochelle just visible in the very far distance.

The next large town was Rochefort.

After Rochefort, the next shot is approaching la Rochelle reporting point SA (Sierra Alpha) close to the coast. As I did not have a transponder I was cleared to SA and had to report when overhead.

I was offered a non-standard right-hand approach to runway 09 following the coastline as the airport was officially closed but I opted to fly the published VFR approach to 09 via a left-hand circuit to the north of the airport just for future experience. The next shot is on base leg to land, to report final.

Now some general shots of la Rochelle airport taken outside the STAR hangar where my Savannah’s avionics were being dealt with. I couldn’t wander too far without authorisation.

The flight back south to Malbec was a bit more trying than the flight up due to the warm sun inducing thermal activity, but nothing like when I flew back in July, which was brutal. To start off with I stayed fairly low but as I could go up to 6500 feet if I wanted to I eventually climbed to 3300 feet where it became calm is this was the level of the cloud base and therefore the height at which the hot air stopped rising.