To Valeuil in 56NE

On Wednesday Wim suggested flying up to Valeuil, or more correctly LF2438 Bas Meygnaud Valeuil, to the north of Périgueux where we visited a few months ago, to pop in on André and Ina for coffee. I thought that this was a great idea as I knew that I’d have 56NE’s prop repair done and thought it would give me a good chance to give the X-Air an airing before putting it up for sale on Le Bon Coin.

As I’d flown via the east of Périgueux the last time, this time I thought I’d fly up via the west and back via the east and here’s the route that I planned taking in LF2437 Le Rigola Bourdeilles near Valeuil as a waypoint.

Wim was originally going to overfly Malbec at 10.00 am and then I was to take off in 56NE and head off after him, but as he was a bit early, he decided to land instead. Here are some shots that I took of 56NE while I was waiting for him.

Wim got to Valeuil before me because for some reason my Asus tablet running Memory Map took ages, about 10 minutes, to latch onto the GPS system. Very annoying! We passed a very enjoyable hour chatting with André and Ina over coffee and then it was time to leave before too many thermals began to build up as a high of 33 degrees was again forecast for today.

Wim left before me while André showed me around the hangar, which I was surprised to find contained four or five flexwings, an ancient side-by-side 3-axis with only one wing cover and the ubiquitous Weedhopper, of course. Here’s a shot that I took of 56NE at Valeuil before I departed for Malbec.

Wim took off on a north-westerly heading, in the opposite direction to the one we’d landed in but I took off towards the south-east. There are some power lines in that direction a few hundred metres beyond the airfield perimeter on which there are also some trees, but I reckoned that I’d clear all of the obstacles by plenty, which was indeed the case.

The flight back was much more bumpy than the flight up, which had been almost totally smooth and my landing back at Malbec was not the tidiest that I’ve ever done. It doesn’t help that I’m flying two different aircraft that are so poles apart in character. But hopefully if 56NE sells once its up on Le Bon Coin, that’s a problem that I won’t have for too much longer 😉