Day: July 16, 2016

Wim and I planned just a short flight today, taking in a couple of local aerodromes. Take off was planned for around 9.00 am so we could get back before it started to become very hot and bumpy, as a cloudless sky and a high of around 30° Celsius had been forecast for later in the day. We thought we’d drop into Sarlat-Domme and pick up a cup of coffee and then fly onto Condat, the airfield with a large tarmac runway that’s a bit like landing on an aircraft carrier.

Here’s a shot of my intended route.

Wim didn’t land at Malbec this morning, and instead I waited for him to overfly the airfield before taking off and following him south to Sarlat, inevitably overtaking him en route. Here are a few shots that I took at Sarlat-Domme including some more unusual ones of the fronts of the airfield buildings that we don’t usually see.

I bumped into the owner of the Beechcraft Kingair that’s based there who tried to help me a few weeks ago when my GPS fell off onto the Savannah’s cabin floor just as I was taking off and we said our ‘Hellos’ and shook each other’s hand. I think he also owns the Air Chateau business at Sarlat that does parachuting and various other activities as the picture above shows.

After taking off and turning on track for Condat, I took the next two pics as I flew past the town of Sarlat bathed in the scorching mid-summer sunlight.

Roland, the owner of Condat, was there when I landed and we were in conversation when Wim touched down almost 10 minutes later. When he found that we were in no hurry to leave, he called a retired English friend of his to drop in and meet us, who turned out to be Bernard, a retired RN sub-mariner.

Wim had to depart because of other business but I stayed on for another 45 minutes or so and had to turn down the offer of a cold beer from Roland’s in-hangar fridge. But eventually I too had to leave before it became too turbulent. Even so, it was pretty bumpy on the way back to Malbec and the approach equally so, but I landed OK and clocked up a total flying time of 75 minutes.

Just as I was finishing wrapping up 77ASY for the day, Victor turned up and we retired to his place for a quick bite. And I also got that cold beer that I’d been looking forward to since Condat 😉