Two Weedhoppers

We enjoyed a great little flight today and for the first time Wim’s single seat Weedhopper, known affectionately as the Red Baron, and my two-seater flew together. The rough idea was to fly ‘in formation’ but there were too many turns and course changes to do that for very long. Even so, as we were flying at about the same speed I had Wim’s aircraft in sight nearly the whole of the time.

We left fairly early, at about 9.30 am, because we knew that as the day heated up it would become more thermic and less enjoyable in our two rather light little aircraft. Wim initially flew into Malbec and our planned route was to head for Condat via Rouffignac and Camping le Coteau de l’Herm, the latter having been acquired this year by Victor’s daughter and son-in-law.

Then we planned to continue on to the airfield operated by the ULM Club at Terrasson that up to today I’d flown over but never landed at, and finally to head for Galinat and then our respective home airfields.

Everything went according to plan and it was great fun. I stayed quite close to Wim as far as Rouffignac but due to the sweeping turn that he made over le Coteau de l’Herm, I lost quite a bit of ground and lost sight of him a bit below me for a short time. However, I then spotted him again and followed him into the by now well-known airfield at Condat with its long, sloping hard runway. Here are some shots of the two Weedhoppers parked on the apron there.

Then on to Terrasson, which is a large commune with new and old sectors situated straddling the two banks of the river Vézère. The next few shots show it while I was approaching the town, the last of which giving a glimpse of the ‘old town’ with its big old church perched on the hill.

Here are some shots of the two Weedhoppers parked facing the west sides of the hangars on the airfield of the ULM club. Yet again on what was an ideal flying morning, there was nobody but us to be seen. Sadly, French ULMistes don’t seem to appreciate how fortunate they are with the relaxed (and therefore relatively inexpensive) flying regime in their country and don’t seem to be half as enthusiastic about flying as we ‘foreigners’ are.

From Terrasson, I took the lead for the first time for the leg to Galinat. In fact, Wim took off just after me and initially overtook me in my Rotax 503 powered two-seater in his 447 powered single seat aircraft. This was partly due to the fact that I began a steeper climb to go over the hills whereas Wim climbed less steeply to skirt around them, but by the time that I took the following shot of Montignac-Lascaux as I flew by, I was back in front again at higher altitude.

I landed just before Wim at Galinat and here are the two aircraft parked there afterwards. Sadly, due to inactivity, Galinat is not as spick-and-span as it used to be and when I have more time, I must go and give Christian a hand as I promised I would a few weeks ago, to get things back into shape.

Afterwards we left separately, Wim to head off for his airfield at Plazac, and me for Malbec. All in all, I clocked a flying time of just under 1½ hours and my best landing of the day? The last one at Malbec, the trickiest of them all. Very satisfying 🙂