France Flying Videos

As well as taking photographs non-stop, Les is a great one for making short videos....

So here are a few:

Departure from Brie-Champniers Airport at Angoulême

Flying over the Poitou-Charente countryside near Cognac

Landing at Lesparre airfield on the Medoc (a greaser!!!!!!)

Another good one at Couhe (well any one you walk away from is a good one!)

And the next day, it was time to go home - here we are heading North from Angouleme, passing east abeam La Rochelle

Over the Loire, and on towards Cherboug for fuel (for the aeroplane and the pilots!)

A bit further up the peninsula

Then with 85 litres in the aircraft & 2 croque-monsieurs in the crew - off we went - life-jackets on and over the channel, out towards ORTAC, under airway Q41 (WHY IS THAT SO LOW!!!), and coasted in over Sandbanks

Back on the ground at Ashcroft Farm about 90 minutes later - a really enjoyable few days flying

G-CGRB in France

Our first trip abroad in RB, originally the plan was to go to Bremgarten and Tannheim in Germany, back across France to Angoulême, stay a couple of days in Poitou-Charente and then return home. But as ever with light aircraft the weather intervenes and the eastern part of France and into Germany just looked too 'iffy' so we departed Ashcroft Farm (EGCR) direct to Guernsey, refuelled there then on to Angoulême.
We arrived at Brie-Champniers airport (LFBU), Angoulême at around 16:00 local, our chauffeuse collected us and we spent a very boozy evening celebrating the first channel crossing for RB. Sunday we had a day off, then Monday we planned a flight from Angoulême to Lesparre/Saint-Laurente-Medoc (LFBU), on to Saint-Pierre-D'Oleron (LFDB), then eastwards and inland to Couhe/Verac (LFDV) and back to Angoulême.

RB on the apron at Angoulême

The Aeroclub at Angoulême were very accommodating letting us park in their hangar for the first night.

Overhead Lesparre

Parked at Lesparre

 Onwards to the Ile d'Oleron

Downwind for runway 10 LH at Saint Pierre d'Oleron

Parked up at St Pierre

Leaving Saint Pierre d'Oleron our track to Couhe took us over Fort Boyard built in the 1800s as a fort, used as a prison and latterly as a game show site.

Finally on to Couhe/Verac, a delightful little grass field, before our return to Angoulême

Overhead Couhe

Parked at Couhe

My thanks to photographer Les for many of the shots above.

Some Aerial Views

So, at long last with the noise issues on RB sorted out, a trip to France beckoned (I'll post another entry with the details).
Having arrived at Angouleme on August 28th, we took the 29th off and lounged by the pool, but then went for a day's flying on Monday the 29th (another post - coming soon!!) to do a round trip to The Medoc, Ile-d'Oleron, Couhe and back to Angouleme - amazingly, just the slightest deviation on the first leg took us right over our house - so an ideal opportunity for some aerial shots - for which I am indebted to my flying friend Les

The Chez Borgnette hamlet - you can just make out the pool

Overhead, a good view of the house, pool and barn

Looking back

Climbing away and departing to the west

G-CGRB - the new CTLS

As I wrote in an earlier post I had a try in a Flight Design CTSW a while back and thoroughly enjoyed the experience - however I didn't really want to go from the grandeur of the Group A Cherokee 6 to a microlight, hence the choice of the CTLS, the big brother.

This aircraft is certified as an EASA Permit to Fly aircraft with a max AUW of 600kg, which gives it a reasonable load carrying capacity (2 x 25kg luggage compartments mean you can take more than you can on Ryanair!!) and juggling fuel and luggage can give you a serious range capability - certainly exceeding the range of my bladder :)

So here it is G-CGRB  - based now at Ashcroft Farm EGCR a delightful grass airfield in rural Cheshire

So far, so good, but it's definitely not all been plain sailing! Since buying the aircraft new, I've had a failed undercarriage leg (manufacturing fault), corrosion found on the engine mount, a failed Dynon EFIS and now a horrendous noise being generated by some resonance somewhere in the aircraft - hopefully to be diagnosed tomorrow (Friday 10th June) - all in all a very, very disappointing experience.

UPDATE - Thanks due to Bill Brookes who flew up to Ashcroft and cast an expert eye over the aircraft. Still not 100% diagnosed, but I'd say 99.99% certain - the problem was that some tape between the fairing at the top of the starboard undercarriage leg and the fuselage had split - very small, almost imperceptible but enough to act as a "reed" in the airflow then that resonating up the leg, up the cabin wall and into the wing was causing the noise. Some vigorous shaking of the leg, the spat and the fairing resulted in the split being considerably enlarged, then, of course on flying the aircraft we could not reproduce the noise. That all fits as presumably with the split in the tape being larger it didn't then resonate at the same frequency - so no noise!

What a sad day!

Today, 29th October 2010, we sold the plane.

Yes, Alliance Aviation, from this Sunday coming will no longer own an aircraft. The reasons are obvious, and in essence the decision was a no-brainer.

• WP is a big, heavy, expensive gas guzzler.
• The group itself is depleted, we never managed to find any new members after one emigrated and one retired so instead of costs being shared amongst 7, it was amongst 5 and with correspondlingly less income as fewer members means less flying.
• The appetite for long trips, for which WP was ideal, seemed to have diminshed amongst us all and the number of hours per year flown by each remaining group member just fell and fell.

So having had the aircraft up for sale for around 2 years, we succumbed today and sold it for not much more than scrap value to a dealer. Weather permitting it will be flown away from Barton on Sunday

A last look at a lovely aeroplane - we've owned it from 1999, I've loved flying it, it's looked after me and never let me down - a sad farewell to an old friend.

 

WP before the respray

and resplendent afterwards

Is this the future of Light Aviation?

Whilst I'm still a comitted member of the G-BXWP flying group (see www.allianceaviation.org for details) we do seem to be having difficulty in getting new members for the group, having lost 2 over the last few years, and that together with the increased cost of aviation fuel, maintenance, parking, landing fees etc. etc. just makes me question how long the situation can continue.

So whilst at Barton (or City Airport Manchester as it is now pretentiously named) a few days ago I had a wander around and took a look at the other aircraft there. One type definitely caught my eye - a composite construction, high wing, tricycle undercarriage design that just "looked right" - so a few enquiries and what I had been looking at turned out to be a CTSW from Flight Design of Germany. The microlight school at Barton, Mainair, owns & operates G-CERA so a call to their owner & chief instructor Chris Copple who I've known for many years soon had me booked in for a flight.

Here it is, parked on the apron at Barton:With Chris in the right hand seat, he took me through the pre-flight briefing then we started up and taxied out to the hold for runway 20, did the checks, lined up then full throttle and away we went. WOW - almost before I'd got the throttle fully open we were airborne and climbing out, maintaining 80 kts in the climb and with what seemed an impossible high attitude we saw well over 1,000 fpm on the electronic altimeter.

Yes that's right - the instruments aren't instruments, it is a flat panel display with a representation of an airspeed indicator and rate of climb - the altitude is shown in digits and by pressing various buttons you can see all manner of information that would traditionally be shown on analogue instruments (and yes those are my feet below the panel!!)

Leaving the circuit we headed out to the North West and did some general handling, straight & level, turns left & right, then a climb and a power off clean stall. I have to report the aircraft handles well, no tendancy to drop the nose in the turn and the stall, at about 40kts, was quite docile with a little buffet and gentle "nod" down of the nose. Push forwards, apply power and the stall recovery was straightfoward with very little height loss.

Then Chris suggested I try a PFL - this from around 2,000' - so I pulled back the power, trimmed for the glide and selected a field, had I been in the Cherokee6 I would have now been starting to sweat, however in the CT the main issue seemed to be to keep choosing another field as we sailed past my first choice then my second one - this aircraft really does want to glide a long way!

Then back to Barton and into the circuit, a standard overhead join, descend and set up an approach to 20 for an intended touch & go which I didn't manage - once again, like the PFL I just couldn't get the height off (once again too used to the Cherokee6) - so turning it into a low approach and go-around instead, off we went for another try. This time it was successful, though I rather ballooned it before touching down, so off again perhaps third time lucky? Nice approach, to all intents and purposes a glide approach with 40 flap, just a touch of power to offset the sink before the hedge, straighten up for the crosswind and hold off, hold off, hold off and this one turned into a good one (well any one you walk away from .........!). Taxy back in, shut down and my first flight in a micro-light was over.

So my impressions?

This seems an excellent little aircraft, were I starting from scratch then there's little doubt this would be right there in the frame rather than the Grob or C150 that I actually started on. Depending on the future of the WP group then I could well be interesting in the CTSW or more likely its larger brother the CTLS - although still a two seater, this moves out of the microlight category and gives around 300KG useful load, is slightly larger and more stable and really does look the part - but who knows what the future might bring?

Taking the Family Flying

Having revalidated my licence, I was able to fulfill a long standing request to take my grandchildren (and along for the ride my daughter and son-in-law) for a pleasure flight.

Although they have all flown on commercial services, only Caroline had ever been in a light aircraft, so this was quite an adventure. I gave a stern safety briefing, majoring on avoiding propellors (which was a little underminded when Seraphina voluteered that she didn't know what a propellor was) - but suitably warned, both children behaved impeccably.

We booked out at the tower, then checked out the aircraft and got everyone strapped in, then off and heading out towards the north west, loooking in at The Reebock, then over towards Southport.

On the way we climbed to about 3,000' on top of the clouds, then a turn for home, descending to be under the Manchester TMA and back to Barton.






I think Quinn may need just to be a little taller if he ever wants to be a pilot!











Not at clear just why Rod has his eyes tight shut, I'm sure my flying wasn't that bad!

Flying Again (and Legal!)

After a couple of years not doing enough hours, my certificate of experience finally ran out so the decision whether to renew or not became rather pressing. I still love flying, so the choice became a little academic and on Tuesday this week, I booked an instructor and planned a little navigation exercise.

All went perfectly well, a mid-point course correction and about 1 minute early we found ourselves bang over the destination without ever having switched the GPS on! Then off for a license skills test - a few steep turns, a practice forced landing, fully developed stall with the aircraft clean, then approaching the stall in the landing configuration. Although feeling a bit rusty, it all came back to me and I coped well (at least I think I did).

Back to Barton, a flapless approach for a touch and go, then a practice EFATO on the climb out with neither me nor the instructor warning the tower that it was a practice - they seemed quite relieved when we acknowledged their radio call as we were climbing away. Round the circuit and in to land and there it was - all done & I can legally fly VFR for another two years.

Now - should I renew the IR ? Yes of course I should :-)