Today’s flight

Low and slow around the area in my Weedhopper, 28AAD. Not my cuppa tea so much since I acquired 77ASY, my Savannah, which is so much more capable. Low and slow is OK if all you want to do is while away an hour or so flying over the same old ground but nowadays I prefer to be able to hop into the Savannah and go somewhere, preferably somewhere new if I can.

I lost two years due to illness and I won’t be able to keep doing longer flights for ever as they are more physically demanding even in an aircraft like the Savannah, so I need to do them while I still can. But that doesn’t mean that I’ll stop doing little local flights, even when I’ve sold the Weedhopper, which I’ve advertised for sale, but no takers for the moment at least.

I planned to do a flight of just over an hour or so of the kind that I used to do when I first arrived here to become familiar with the area. The first leg was to be out to the west taking me to Vergt, from where I’d head south to a tiny little commune, just a few houses and a church on a small hill, called Clermont-de-Beauregard.

From there I’d continue southwards to Lalinde, a town that’s popular with Brits on the river Dordogne. Then I’d head eastwards to Le-Buisson-de-Cadouin and St-Cyprien before turning north to Les-Eyzies (Les-Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil in full) and continuing on for a landing back at Malbec. Here’s a picture of the route based on an old chart from 2015 which shows the place names.

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I took quite a few photographs along the way but unfortunately they were all taken through 28AAD’s plastic screen and doors so leave a lot to be desired for quality, even after doing everything possible to improve them by editing. My best aircraft for photography was 56NE, my old X-Air now sold, because it had no doors on. I was thinking about removing 28AAD’s doors today but decided against it and now I wish I had done.

Here’s the first shot climbing out past Fleurac with the chateau passing below.

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Now a couple of general shots heading westwards towards Vergt.

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Approaching Vergt, which is famous for its strawberries.

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Three shots of Vergt itself as I passed overhead and began my turn towards the south.

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A couple of shots of the tiny commune of Clermont. Not very good I’m afraid but the best that I could do with them.

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A shot approaching Lalinde.

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Three shots of Lalinde which is somewhat strangely located as a strip on just the one side, the northern bank, of the river Dordogne, I think because the southern side slopes up quite steeply from the river.

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Three shots of Le-Buisson, which is a small town of little renown except it has a railway station in the centre from which you can connect to cities in the north and south of France. I left from here by train when I went to pick up my Kia Sportage when I bought it back in 2013. Or was it 2014, I can’t remember?

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Now some shots of St-Cyprien. It has a big old building on its hilltop that I think used at one time to be an abbey. Now it’s been converted into appartments.

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And the final aerial shot, passing overhead Les-Eyzies.

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And to finish off, three shots that I took with my new phone after landing back at Malbec.

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The flight lasted 1 hour 10 minutes from brakes off to brakes on, so just about what I’d planned for. It was good fun and it was certainly good to be back in the air again. I took off at 10.10am to miss the forecast increase in temperature and hence turbulence and was back at 11.20 am, so that worked out well.

I’m hoping that with a bit of luck I might get another couple of flights at least in this coming week, but this time in the Savannah, getting myself prepared for flying up to the UK, but I’ll just have to see how things turn out.