What are you planning? Where shall we go?
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By PeteSpencer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1380639
Great weekend: Thanks to James for doing all the organising and to him and Rob for doing all the taxy ferrying.

The three meals were just fantastic and it was good to meet up with old friends and to meet some new friends.

Dave and I took a day out to visit a town not far from Bordeaux where I lived more than half a century ago: My old school now has a post office on the site and all that remained was a marble plaque!

Dave and I came back IFR at FL 80 and FL 100 and missed most of the weather: we had some excitement when on raising the gear on takeoff from Saucats we were met by a deafening Klaxon from the auto extend warner: Quick circuit to land and a phone call to engineer in UK diagnosed a faulty microswitch.

So we set off with the prospect of 5 hours klaxon blaring but fortunately the klaxon 'died' after 10 minutes.

We heard Jenny on the radio a couple of times but otherwise it was pretty quiet.

Great meeting : hope to go to many more before I hang up my cans.

Peter
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By Awful Charlie
#1380641
Indeed so great to catch up with old friends and find new ones, and so many thanks to all of those that put in so much effort for the organisation - particularly the Robs and James, but many more too.

Made it home in time to get the aircraft back in the hangar before the heavens opened on the motorway driving home, one of those where I wondered if the hailstones were going to cover the car in dents or break the windscreen - fortunately neither, but was glad not to be in the air for that.

Certainly looking forward to the next one :cheers: :cheers: :cheers:
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By Rob P
#1380644
PeteSpencer wrote:...IFR at FL 80 and FL 100 and missed most of the weather


There was some weather to miss? Saucats > Abbeville > Old Buck was very benign, though the headwind on the lower leg - cross Channel - was annoying.

Must be the first time that IFR gets lower levels than VFR. Cognac insisted I transited their bit at FL115. Very calm up there though.

But anyway, good to see you and Dave (From both Sandra and I.)

Will you now have to replace the klaxon?

R
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By Iceman
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1380650
What a fab few days. Great flying, great company and a very welcoming fab little airport as a fly-in venue. Thanks to Rob and James in particular and to Paul Sengupta for taking the gendarme flak :D. Skydriller, almost certainly us on the way past as we routed very close to your strip to have a look. We should have had lunch in the airport restaurant prior to departure as no food to be had at La Rochelle, Dinard and Jersey on the way home.

Iceman 8)
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By Paul_Sengupta
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1380661
Well...what can I say?! Brilliant weekend with some brilliant friends, brilliant food (my belt seems to have shrunk a notch), brilliant city, brilliant airfield and a reasonable amount of drink...

Thanks all, it was, well, brilliant!

Met a couple of forumites I hadn't met before (including of course Skydriller and James - and their lovely other halves!), but mostly got re-acquainted with many more.

Charles and I stopped off at Cholet and Cherbourg on the way back. Cholet is lovely...nice art-deco "terminal" with the restaurant (I did the ice cream and coffee thing too!) and tower and a couple of flying schools (one of which had just bought a G reg PA28 marked up with markings from a Manchester flying school!). They were really friendly and fuel was available, paid for my credit card. It was pretty much directly on track and pretty much half way to Cherbourg. Landing fee about four and half euros. On approach to Cherbourg I had to expedite my landing as the aforementioned C47 was just about to drop some paratroopers! After being treated to a parachute display, we were then treated to the C47 flying past then landing afterwards. Met the famous Luc at last!

I'd like to echo all the above thanks to Rob, SD and James, but I'd also like to say a special thanks to everyone else based at Saucats, and especially the club whose room and fridge we commandeered for the event! We barged in, took over and thoroughly made ourselves at home! :D I hope the locals didn't find it all too disrupting. So thanks to all the locals who made us so welcome.

And I didn't get my aeroplane impounded by the police! Result! :D
By SimonM
#1380674
An absolutely fantastic few days loved by all. A massive thanks to Rob and James for all their planning and hard work and of course to the aerodrome for allowing our visit to happen.....My first trip into deepest France and I have visited 9 airfields already.
(Rouen, Le Mans, Saucats, Biarritz, Pau Pyrennes, Bergerac, Agen, Tour, Abbeville). One day I'll make it to Le Touquet.

The trip back was as eventful as the day trips we had in the fact that having landed at Tours and filed our return flight plan from Abbeville-Seething. We sat with engine running waiting to depart directly after 2 military jets when one put a hole in the runway and the airfield was closed.
"G-LY shutdown you will not be leaving today" came the call from ATC but after an hour and a half and a bit of explaining that the 1400mtrs left was more than enough for us they eventually let us leave from the good part of the runway. A mad dash to Abbeville folllowed, although 110Kts IAS and 79Kts GS wasn't that quick, we got to Abbeville just to wave RobP and sandra off. A quick splash and dash and we managed to activate the flight plan exactly an hour after the designated time which we had set 5:30hrs earlier.

Great to meet so many of you and looking forward to the next one. :thumleft:

For anyone else that fancies flynig in France.... Go and do it. Its a lot easier than you could ever imagine.
Last edited by SimonM on Tue Jun 09, 2015 9:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
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By Rob P
#1380686
We were very pleased/relieved to see you guys appear at Abbeville. You only missed the fuel by an hour.

Rob P
By SimonM
#1380700
The chap cutting the grass was good enough to serve us some fuel on double quick time and while one of us sorted that the other two prepped for the next leg....25 minute turnaround. Back home now but wishing such a memorable weekend could have gone on just a little longer. Its going to be hard to beat.
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By Dave W
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1380704
Rob P wrote:Sad to not see The Eagle :-(


Yes, was very much looking forward to finally meeting him; especially sad that I understand his friend's funeral was a reason for his non-appearance. :( :(

Pete L wrote:Met a few returnees for softer drinks on the way back at Dinard - missed Dave tho, although we have some pics of the Jodel landing.


I'd love to see those idc. I hope you & Viv enjoyed St Malo. My departure to the NE from Dinard had a wonderful view of the walled town; I gave you a wing-waggle just in case you were looking up. ;) The reason I didn't see you in the terminal was because it took me an hour to get fuelled after the Pompiers' dongle* failed to work in the electronic system; not a problem except pumps to La Feu-Maison is about three hundred metres, so doing that return journey twice against the clock was no fun. Small beer when compared with SimonM's experiences, of course.

Never mind, though - to save doing it a third time, [childhood dream]I got a lift in a fire engine**.[/childhood dream]

I did miss the Ryanair scrum on the apron though. Impressive turnaround time, those boys.





*Not as rude as it sounds.
**Well, a red pickup. Close enough for this small child. :)
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By ianfallon
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1380743
Glad you all had a great time :) :thumleft:

So where is next year's ? ;-)
1st weekend of the month please ;-)
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By Rob P
#1380749
You just elected yourself the organiser.

You tell us :D

Rob P
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By Rob P
#1380788
Possibly my favourite image of the weekend

Image

Rob P
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By ianfallon
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1380808
Perhaps The Chateaux with the Gateaux ?! Did anyone stop there in the end this time ?
By LZ791
#1380827
ianfallon wrote:Perhaps The Chateaux with the Gateaux ?! Did anyone stop there in the end this time ?


I did along with Moli. Since the pictures on their web site were posted the parking area alongside the woods has been ploughed up. Parking is minimal now at best six to eight on the remaining grass parking by the hangar. Parking aside it was a fab location to stop and picnic, the Chateau owner was delighted to see and host us all. I will certainly visit again.
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