Savannah – update 2

So after an exciting and very pleasurable day’s circuit flying at la Ferté the day before – 55 minutes in the morning and 45 minutes in the afternoon – the day finally dawned to make the flight down to la Dordogne. Despite the forecast that the morning would be cold early on but would warm up by 10.00 am, the temperature nevertheless stayed stubbornly below freezing with a heavy frost and ice on the hangar apron.

The main result was that the layer of ground-hugging mist that hung over the land as far as the eye could see, refused to budge even after the sky adopted a sunnier, bluer hue with thinning clouds. However, I knew that the further south I flew the better the conditions would become and as the visibility otherwise appeared pretty good, I decided that the time had come to take off.

The Savannah had had its tanks topped up the previous evening and both Robert and I had given it a thorough inspection, so there was no need for further delay. And then the only event that marred the day occurred while I was moving the aircraft. Due to an error of judgement on my part, the right wing tip lightly skimmed against an obstacle. Luckily this resulted in no damage to the wing tip itself, save for a little bit of paint scuffing, but it broke the strobe light, dammit!

This was upsetting but was not a disaster as after a roll of gaffer tape had been produced, the light fitting was taped over to make it OK for the flight and in no time I was taxying out to runway 22. After checking the T’s and P’s and mag drops, I lined up and applied full power. ASY accelerated down the runway, but things felt different to the day before. Today the acceleration was much slower and after travelling what seemed like a couple of hundred metres, perhaps more, down the runway, I decided to abort the take off.

Just before I closed the throttle, however, I noticed that the engine revs were where they should be, so I concluded that the engine itself wasn’t the problem. The difference was just down to the extra weight on board, full tanks compared to half tanks the day before, and the state of the runway.

Previously I’d been using 04 whereas today I was on 22 and I then remembered that Robert had warned me about the state of the surface at that end. So as I turned off the runway and began to taxi back to the holding point, I waved Robert away as he began to approach the aircraft as I taxied to investigate what he thought was a potential problem.

I told him over the radio that I didn’t think that anything was wrong and that I was going to give it another go, which is what I did. And this time I kept well to the left of the centreline and got away, albeit with a bit more of a take off roll than previously. As I climbed away, I bade ‘Au revoir’ to the guys on the ground and then began to turn my attention to the flight. The mist, as I’d expected, wasn’t a problem once I was airborne and the vis was actually pretty good, despite there being no defined horizon at that time, as the next picture that I took shortly after getting to about 2000 feet shows.

My first waypoint, Provins and then a shallow turn to the right.

And a short while later, a spectacular view of a canal and system of lakes bounded by the towns of Vimpelles, Bazoches-lès-Bray and Châtenay sur Seine, a few tens of kilometres to the north of the Loire.

Now approaching the town of Gien on the northern bank of the river Loire, with it’s distinctive northern road and roundabout layout that’s also clearly visible on Google Earth.

A shot taken at the time on the other side of the aircraft of one of the many power stations dotting the landscape in this part of France belching out their clouds of steam into the atmosphere.

Now a couple more shots passing overhead Gien and the Loire itself.

It was about this time that I began to experience, let’s just say, some discomfort in the nether regions. I’d had my usual ‘hotel’ kind of breakfast of cornflakes, croissant, orange juice and coffee but that had been some time ago, and although I’d drunk another small coffee since then, I’d taken the opportunity to pee a couple of times before taking to the air.

There is a tube that brings heat from the engine into the Savannah’s cabin but it’s not that efficient and it was not exactly what you could warm in there, so I guess that the principal factor was the cold. But what was more important was the effect that it was beginning to have. I saw the aerodrome at Aubigny pass under my right wing and toyed with the idea of landing there before deciding to continue on. I still had a good couple of hours flying to do but I thought that I’d be able to make it while still avoiding any unfortunate personal accidents.

But it was not to be. Within half an hour the need to pee had become extremely urgent, to the point that I knew that if I wasn’t able to do something about it pretty soon, the matter would be taken out of my hands, so to speak! And then a vision passed before my eyes. As I gritted my teeth, I looked below and saw, as revealed on my GPS, the aerodrome at Issoudun passing almost vertically below me. So I took an instant decision!

There was a total absence of movement on the aerodrome because, as I found out afterwards, the aero club there is for ‘planeurs’ (gliders) and they obviously wouldn’t be flying on such a day in such weather. So I cut the gas, shoved the nose down and hurtled earthwards like an express lift. Issoudun has a multiplicity of long grass runways and I didn’t care that I’d be landing downwind on the main one as there was plenty of length to stop in. I put 20 degrees of flap on and I have to admit, slightly exceeded the flap speed limit in my haste to get down, but landed safely, taxied up to the hangar, cut the engine, jumped out and raced across to the corner of the building.

The relief was absolute bliss. I peed twice before taking off again to resume my journey south and here’s a shot I took of ASY in front of Issoudun’s cafe/bar and hangar before climbing back in and restarting the engine. Important Memo – for my next long flight, come prepared with a large, wide necked plastic bottle 🙂

I back-tracked on Issoudun’s main runway and took off into wind, which had me heading in the ‘wrong’ direction after take off. So I then just put ASY into a steep climbing right-hand turn, much as I’d experienced with the owner of the Savannah I flew in in the Mourbihan the day after I’d first seen ASY, and was soon back at altitude and on track.

I’d already left Argenton some way behind me and just off to my right after taking off from Issoudun was Chateuroux, with its large airport, soon followed by Vierzon, all places with names well-known by drivers heading south on the the main A20 autoroute, known as ‘l’Occitane’. But my mode of travel was much more rapid than theirs. It had taken me almost 8 hours a day or so before to get from Plazac to la Ferté Gaucher and now I would be making the return journey in under 4. And the next large city that I’d be passing abeam was Limoges. Here are a couple of shots of the countryside in between.

As I already knew following my flight south nearly 4 years ago in MYRO, the ground rises up ahead of Limoges and as I’d been flying mostly at 2000-2500 feet, I had to climb up to nearly 3000 to maintain good terrain clearance. Here’s a shot that I took out of my left window.

And here’s a shot that I took at the same time in the opposite direction, showing high ground and houses on about the same level as I was at.

Just afterwards I passed east abeam the city of Limoges, which is visible in the distance in the next shot.

Apart from a brief period of severe turbulence that caused me little discomfort as ASY is a responsive and comfortable aircraft, the rest of the flight was fairly uneventful. Here’s a shot of the typical Limousin/Aquitaine countryside that I passed over.

Eventually the familiar and welcome sight of Montignac hove into view and shortly after I was preparing myself for a landing at Galinat. By setting up a long final from just south-east of Thonac, I was able to get my speed down enough to apply 20 degrees of flap, which I knew would give me ample opportunity to pull up on Galinat’s upward sloping runway. The plan worked a treat and I had to apply power, as usual, to taxy up to the top end where Wim had been patiently awaiting my arrival.

It was very satisfying to taxy ASY round to Regis’s aircraft’s old parking place, and even more so to go off for a most welcome cup of tea with Wim and Sophie after we’d tied ASY down and made everything secure. A great flight of dead on 4 hours, excluding the comfort-break midway 😉