My flying was much more boring – hold & ILS at Southend… The instructor (this time acting as an observer while I was PIC under the hood) was late…
The wife said that most of my instructors are just like doctors – they are always late, even if you are their first appointment on the day. :)
That’s a gift (in french dans le texte – I’m backseat):
Not really the weekend any more, but still. Took my plane to Tarbes and back (about 2 hours each way) as part of the engine running-in program.
One of the French Sécurité Civile Dash-8s landing at Cannes. These are used for fire fighting but other things too – I watched one circling very low over the Nice back country a few weeks ago, no idea what they were doing.
Our route took us just south of Toulouse in both directions. The centre of Toulouse from 9000 feet.
My plane in its brthplace, and in the background the aeroplane cemetery run by Tarmac at Tarbes. There were at least 10 A380s there, mainly Air France and Malaysian.
The salt ponds in the Camargue. If you buy La Baleine salt, this is where it comes from.
On Friday flew to Serristori LIQQ in Tuscany for the weekend returning home on Sunday.
Great airfield, avagas and mogas available, rooms, good restaurant, swimming pool
Monday was a bank holiday in the UK, so I made the most of it with a full day trip to Caen LFRK, where we hired a car (bit of a rush to get there before 12 noon, when is when they close for lunch) given the 9 am local opening time at Fairoaks (had I planned ahead, I’d not have left the lifejackets in the cupboard in the hangar…). Anyway, soon on the road to visit Omaha Beach and saw the Normandy American Cemetery, and the British Normandy Memorial inland from Gold Beach. Stopped for lunch in Ouistreham and visited one of the museums there.
All quite busy given the upcoming 80th anniversary of D-Day – indeed, there’s a Notam re. limited/no parking for light aircraft at Caen next week. USAF C-17 seemed to have just arrived before us – probably related.
Easy flying; went IFR there due to some weather around Caen but VFR back – arriving back just before sunset. Lovely view over the Channel!
