Day: March 6, 2025

The weather didn’t actually look too promising for my flight north in 24ZN when I checked it one last time early yesterday morning with strong south-easterly winds forecast and freezing fog and IMC conditions unflyable in 24ZN at the northern end. I contacted 24ZN’s soon-to-be new owner and he said that it was cold but that as on previous days, the mist and fog would clear during the morning.

So as I now didn’t have to worry what time I got into Brive at, as I wouldn’t have a lift there waiting for me to arrive, I decided to be cautious and take off later than I’d originally planned to. And the weather forecasts I consulted varied so much in wind direction and strength anyway (the first time I’ve ever seen that happen) that I didn’t think it would be worth re-doing the numbers for a later take-off time. I actually went at around 9.30am rather than the 8.00am that I’d originally planned for.

As soon as I took off at Malbec I knew that the day’s flying conditions would be challenging because of the wind, although I found that with one or two exceptions the bumps and turbulence weren’t as bad as I thought they would be if I climbed a bit higher than usual. So I did the whole flight at around 2500 – 2700 feet only once touching just over 3000. Then the wind came round more onto my tail and although I had to keep a constant right aileron correction to compensate and stay on track, controlling 24ZN became more comfortable.

But the effect the wind had was staggering. When I do my planning, I use a figure of 90kmh for 24ZN’s air and groundspeed in still air. A favourable wind (tailwind) increases that figure while an unfavourable one (headwind) reduces it. Rarely is the wind either a direct head or tailwind which is why for navigation planning purposes, we do either manual or, as in my case, automatic ‘triangle of forces’ calculations in a spreadsheet to work out in which direction we should aim the nose of the aircraft (heading) given the desired direction of travel (track) and the wind velocity (speed and direction).

Now take a look at the numbers. I use a ‘normal’ cruising speed of 24ZN of 90 kmh although actually, if its airspeed indicator is correct, although it’s never been checked to my knowledge, it’s closer to 85 kmh. The total length of yesterday’s flight from Malbec to Morand was 292 kmh, so my starting ‘rule of thumb’ estimate was that it would take about 3 1/2 hours plus an additional half hour to land on the way and transfer fuel into the aircraft’s tanks, so about 4 hours in total. Thus a take off time of 8.00 am would lead to an arrival time at Morand of about midday. Bear in mind 24ZN’s estimated true groundspeed in still air of 85 kmh as explained above.

The first leg from Malbec to Gajoubert where I had permission to land was of 125 km and my final calculation ‘on the day’ was that with ‘reasonable’ wind speed estimates it would take around 89 minutes with bits added on at each end for take off and landing patterns. So at least 90 minutes (a bit more actually) at an indicated airspeed of 85 kmh. In fact the first leg in total took only 55 minutes (I know, stunning) giving a true ground speed of 136 kmh, which is an amazing figure for an X-air and not that far short of my Savannah’s true ground speed in still air (140/150 kmh).

Doing similar calculations for the second leg from Gajoubert to Morand gave a true ground speed for the leg of 118 kmh, still very impressive, and for the flight overall, a true average ground speed of 125 kmh. So you can see, the wind was proving a huge boost to 2ZN over the course of the flight, boosting it’s true ground speed by nearly 50% over its ground speed in still air of 85 kmh.

Yesterday’s times for the log books were therefore a good bit off my original ‘rule-of-thumb’ estimate of 4 hours for the flight as a whole. After departing Malbec at around 9.30 am and after a 20 minute stop to top 24ZN’s tanks up at Gajoubert, I still managed to land at Morand not long after midday. With an engine warm up time of 10 minutes, then flight and engine times of 2 hrs 27mins for the two legs, total engine time was 2hrs 37mins and airframe time me 2hrs 27 mins, incredibly quick.

It wasn’t all milk and honey, though, of course, it couldn’t be with such high wind speeds which are always accompanied by bumps and turbulence. The first time these were felt was shortly after take off when, with the wind coming from its right rear quarter, 24ZN was affected quite considerably during the right hand turn onto track after take off. The next time was at the landing to refuel at Gajoubert where, with the disposition of the runway (22 with a left hand circuit pattern) there was a very strong gusting cross wind from the left at probably a bit more than 24ZN’s design cross wind limit.

It happened again after taking off at Gajoubert and turning right onto track and in the video that I managed to capture on the GoPro set up in the cabin there’s clearly one huge lump of turbulence which lifted me out of my seat and had me reaching to pull my seat belt really tight. After about 15 minutes the turbulence began to moderate as I proceeded north until by the time I got to Morand the conditions were comparatively benign, which I greatly appreciated as I came in to land there for the first (and last) time on its long grass runway 17.

I mentioned above that I managed to capture a video of the second leg of the flight including the take off at Gajoubert and the landing at Morand. But that’s all I did get and I have to say that I’m getting heartily sick of my two GoPro cameras that are totally unreliable. I expected to plug them both into my giant power bank, together with my GPS tablet, and then forget about them as the power bank could provide a running time of over 20 hours.

In fact BOTH GoPros stopped shortly after I’d started them running at Malbec so disappointingly I got absolutely nothing of the flight’s first leg. And nothing from the outside camera of the second leg either which seemed to be running when I checked it at Gajoubert but obviously wasn’t, so that camera was a total loss. I only got the cabin camera working for the second leg because I had to stop it (when it already wasn’t running) and remove it to get to the fuel jerrican and restart it again before take off, so if I hadn’t done that I’d have got nothing from the whole flight.

So my overall conclusion is that GoPros are rubbish and this is further backed up by always having difficulty getting the data they’ve recorded off them because Windows can’t detect their USB mode which allows the files to be directly transferred to the computer’s hard drive. Instead the GoPros usually have to be opened up and have their SD cards removed so they can be read by a USB card reader. This means that they also then lose many settings, like time and date. Hopeless. I’ll never buy another.

Some pictures of the flight, starting with 24ZN parked at Gajoubert after I’d done the fuel transfer.

Take off into the stiff left-hand cross wind at Gajoubert.

Heading north towards the river Loire.

Just about to cross the Loire with Amboise behind me on my left side (not shown in the image).

Just about to enter downwind LH for runway 17 at Morand.

Final runway 17 at Morand with the cables on the approach just visible.

Now you can see the cables.

24ZN in its new home at Gajoubert.

Me after completing the flight north.

Marc, 24ZN’s new owner (down low) and Charlie (I think it was) the owner of the beautiful Piper Cub.

My thoughts were then turning to getting to Vierzon and boarding the train to Brive as soon as possible. But the usual things happened, talking followed by a quick snack, which I didn’t really need, and I was on the platform 2 hours later than I’d wanted to be. Then things began to turn into a comedy of errors. I didn’t realise that two trains would arrive within 5 minutes of each other on my platform and got on the wrong one, only realising it too late when it jolted into motion a few minutes before the train I actually wanted to be was scheduled for. Late yes, early never and I ended up at Bourges and had to return to Vierzon and amend my ticket. The same guy who’d given me my ticket in the first place realised my plight and very considerately swapped my old ticket for a First Class one which was very nice of him, but all of this took time and I missed the next one to Brive as well.

The one I eventually got was supposed to arrive at about 2200 but didn’t get there until about 2345 and we had several huge delays en route, mainly I think because a lot of modernisation work is going on at the large stations along the route, including Chateauroux, Limoges and Brive itself. So when I arrived at Brive it was chaos because people were trying to grab taxis and there was also a large group whose coach apparently hadn’t turned up. For me the taxi nightmare was compounded because no driver wanted to go as far as Fleurac and getting an Uber was also impossible.

One driver who made a mistake understanding my required destination said he wanted a fare of 185€ when he found that I wanted to go to Fleurac and that I balked at, so I decided to bite the bullet and wait overnight until the Montignac bus service started at 0800 the next morning (today) and get a taxi from there. Not too bad I thought – a bit like having a layover at an airport but it was to turn into one of the strangest nights I can ever remember.

A weird young Hungarian lady was also there, just the two of us. She said she was 35 and worked at a Marriott hotel in Paris from whence she had come to see her ‘boyfriend’ in Brive who was now not answering her calls. But that was just the start of it. She had bright, quite intense staring eyes and I think she was Bipolar because she said she was and during the night her behaviour became weirder and weirder as the night progressed. Her French and English were impeccable and she was clearly very intelligent and as the night went on she began to regale me with stories of all the men she had been, was and was still having sex with.

She also described the shenanigans going on in Hungary with her close family unit and friends which seemed to become ever more complex and intertwined as her conversation progressed. I don’t know what the purpose of all this was but I’m an old bird who’s pretty unshockable although I don’t think that was the reason. She herself said she was on a ‘high’ and didn’t need any sleep. I tried to say that I was the opposite and needed a nap but she wouldn’t have it and so it went on.

The terminal at Brive was locked for a while but reopened at around 3.00am because trains were scheduled to restart between 4.00 and 5.00. It was pretty cold by then and I said that we should go into the tunnel that connects the platforms which was open because of the development work that was going on. For some reason she left her small backpack at the top of the steps leading down, why I do not know, and even at that time of the morning, when we went back up again it had gone, together with, she said, her purse and bank cards. However, by now she was expressing little concern about it.

She’d also gone up onto one of the platforms where there was a train parked with all of its systems switched off, opened a door and climbed into it. She tried to get me to go with her but I thought it prudent (ahem…) to decline and went off to see if her back pack had been dumped in a rubbish bin, without any luck. After the station doors had been unlocked and people began to trickle in, some time after 4.00am, things continued to become more manic. At one time she was lying on her back on a banc of seats raising her legs alternately in the air and quite loudly singing the Edith Piaf Hymne à l’amour in pefect French to the amusement and somewhat consternation of the growing travelling public. But it still didn’t end there.

She originally had had a pack of cigarettes which she had been chain-smoking her way through until they were all gone. When the shop opened she asked if I could buy her another which I did as I assumed she now didn’t have any money hoping that it might pacify her. But it was not to be. Unfortunately she insisted on smoking them inside the terminal building which is, of course, strictly forbidden and against the law. She openly defied two SNCF staff members who tried to get her to go outside and that was the last straw.

Shortly after the police arrived and she ended up being taken away by them in one of their cars. I have no idea what happened after that but I think that I might have dodged a bullet. I have no idea why strange things always happen to me whenever I embark on an adventure. After that everything went to plan. I caught the Montignac bus and although I still couldn’t get a taxi there, I was grateful to scrounge a lift off someone I called because by then I hadn’t slept for well over 24 hours. And I’ve still only dozed a bit before typing this, but pretty soon I’ll be able to descend into the land of sweet dreams 😉