Where have you been? What have you seen?
#1550152
Following on from leads via Flyer Forum (thanks Adrian et al) we have recently returned from an excellent week of exploring and flying in the French Alps operating out of Montmeilleur, Gap and Mt Dauphin airfields in our RV7.

Those that are old hands at this sort of thing already know all about this stuff but I thought a few words about the trip might encourage others to take a step into indulging in the flying heaven that is the French Alps. It truly is not as hard as it first seems and so long as pleasant weather is chosen, flying in the mountains can be remarkably benign.

Our recent trip opportunity came about at very short notice when Ernst, the owner of Montmeilleur, contacted us late a week last Friday afternoon us to say they were at the castle with a spare apartment available if we could make it down at the weekend?

No time to waste, and with only a short VFR weather window looking possible after a front to clear Nottinghamshire sometime during Saturday morning, we elected to take the easy option of the 2hr PPR to Le Touquet for customs before heading on to Troyes for fuel and then hoping to dodge the forecast CBs by routing west around Lyon and, if lucky, to get to Montmeilleur late afternoon. (We did this even though we had plenty of fuel to make Troyes in one hop as the decision to go was taken after the 1600L Friday customs notification cut off at Troyes for flights over the weekend).
All went according to plan, albeit in uninspiring weather with heavy overcast (hence no pics of that bit), until near St Yan when it became apparent the CB were indeed rapidly becoming huge as forecast and had formed up into a solid wall ahead of us. Diverting into St Etienne was the obvious choice – we landed there just ahead of a spectacular lightning storm front, to be met by the flying club members who whisked the RV into the hangar and thrust cold beers into our hands whilst Phillipe booked a room for us in a nearby hotel. It always amazes me in aviation how one can go in minutes from the pressure of avoiding a grotty (and potentially quite dangerous) weather situation to falling into the company of new friends and be sitting in the bar engaging in the usual flying club banter. :thumleft:

Phillipe collected us again at 0830 the following morning and we spent a pleasant hour at the flying club chatting to our hosts and indulging the inevitable perusal of multiple different ‘favorite’ met web sites whilst awaiting the morning low cloud to lift from the hills to make the short 75mile hop across to Montmeilleur at FL85 in glorious sunshine.

Montmeilleur is a castle and surrounding estate which sits at around 3000ft elevation in the western French Alps, just east of Parc Vercors, and is owned by Ernst and Irmgard Lemberger - they used to fly actively themselves, operating aircraft as large as a Jetprop into the estate’s 500m strip, so it is no problem for anyone with a modicum of previous strip experience and a reasonable performance aircraft. However, it should be noted that the strip is a true one way in-one way out mountain affair with significant gradient uphill towards the East and requires PPR to both the owners and (before first landing at the site only) the local Prefeteur, which we had done well in advance. In fact we had previously popped over to checkout the strip during an earlier Alpine trip to make sure we were comfortable with it and to make a first visit lightly loaded, before the pressure of committing to a landing with accommodation booked.
http://www.montmeilleur.com/index.html

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Montmeilleur strip

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Having been before we found the strip is easy to locate and very straightforward to use, even at near MAUW loaded with fuel and luggage for a holiday (admittedly, we have only landed there in calm conditions – I’ll bet it is not so gentile if any real wind blowing though…!!). Ernst and Irmgard met us at the top of the strip to help pop the RV into the shade hangar and give us a lift down the hill to the castle before feeding us a sumptuous roast lamb Sunday lunch, taken outside with the family and other guests at the castle – a great opportunity to meet everyone.

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Our apartment turned out the be named La Chapelle for good reason, being the old chapel (in the left hand wing and tower in the picture below) and could not have been a nicer place to stay for the next three days.
http://www.montmeilleur.com/cottage.html

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Facilities include your apartment with free run of the castle and grounds, courtesy car, bikes, free hangarage and use of the runway- we were encouraged to help ourselves to produce from the organic vegetable garden and to feed and walk the donkeys whenever we wished. :D

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Happy Liz :D

All of this at a cost of just 120Euro per night – an absolute bargain and heartily recommended to anyone who fancies this sort of flying break. :thumleft:

Somebody forgot to shut the door to the British weather last week and the errant jet stream brought two days of low cloud southwards as far as the Alps on Monday and Tuesday. Cloudbase was too low for my comfort level in the hills so we left the RV in the hangar and used the opportunity to enjoy a proper couple of days relaxing - We took the car and explored the area, chilled in the library or ate enormous meals with Ernst and Imgard and their various friends who seemed to drop by to share a glass of wine and meal at every opportunity.
The only flying activity we saw whilst at Montmeilleur was a DR400 with a couple of German guys who landed on the strip after knocking their Alpine transit on the head due low cloud. They were only on the ground for an hour or so though until a small gap in the cloud tempted them on their way again – rather them than me with cloud only half way up the hills and biggish showers around.

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Mens village

Normal service resumed weather-wise on Wednesday morning so it was time to be on with the plan to move to our next base at Gap to meet up with some friends flying sailplanes from there – only 25 miles and 8/8 sunshine all the way. We arrived in plenty of time to play with gliders and afterwards to nip over to the shop for a stock up on smelly sausage and cheese rations to be enjoyed in the hotel garden during the late afternoon whilst watching the continuous string of Porters and Caravans lifting skydivers – very busy and in some ways a pleasant change to enjoy seeing such an active airfield at work after the almost total silence and solitude of the previous three days.


We stayed for two nights at the Interhotel Le Cap which is only 300 metres from the Rwy 20 threshold at Gap Tallard, it is quite acceptable and comes with air conditioned rooms, pool and restaurant– cost is around 100 Euro/night for two persons, breakfast included.
https://en.inter-hotel.com/hotel/proven ... ard/le-cap

For those that have not yet been to the area it is worth mentioning that Le Looping bar and restaurant on the airfield is excellent and that Tallard village is an easy c.1 mile stroll (or hire a bike from the hotel @ 4E/half day) for a pleasant change of scenery in the evening and sports a couple of lovely restaurants, Pizzeria du Chateau and La Cigale being the ones which are always laid back favorites of ours.

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Pizzeria du Chateau

Thursday presented another superb flying day so we took a bimble around the block for an hour (it is nice to have performance that still gives 700fpm climb at 10,000ft and 120kts in that part of the world) before dropping into St Crepin for lunch and then a gentle meander back to Gap to fuel up, pay our dues and take in some more pool and deckchair time ahead of heading home of Friday.

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Gap climbout

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St Crepin

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Thank you Mr Vangrunsven :D

We had been watching the weather and it looked like Friday afternoon offered the best opportunity to get home ahead of yet another forecast front associated with the depression that had been hanging around all week over the SW of Britain. We reckoned we needed just over 4 hours flight time and should aim to be home for 1600L to beat the rain and so left at 0830L French time to give us plenty of time for a break at Troyes for fuel, customs and a cuppa before the last leg home.

Once again, as seems to be the norm in France we had our choice of height and routings approved with no problem, even near busy airspace like Lyon and Paris. We did the leg Gap-Troyes at FL90 in glorious sunshine, followed by mostly FL60-FL 75 for the bit Troyes – 15 miles from the French coast in lovely sunshine again but with increasingly obvious weather ahead. The Chanel was crossed at under 2000 feet beneath the scuddy 7/8cu and the rest of trip home was at similar level bouncing around in a turbulent airmass dodging showers to land back at Rectory Farm 2hours ahead of the frontal rain arriving.

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First 400 miles weather :D

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Last 200 miles weather :wink:

Flight time home worked out at a few minutes over the 4hours for almost 600nm and included a go around due to somebody having a problem on the runway ahead of us at Troyes – one day I will do it in under the four hours.
Next time….
Last edited by Charliesixtysix on Thu Aug 03, 2017 12:57 pm, edited 4 times in total.
Dave W, G-BLEW, mick w and 8 others liked this
#1550331
Thanks.
It is rare that anyone talks to you at the smaller or private fields - but yes, local QNH seems to be used for most flying in the area unless talking to Marseille, which is often not possible or at best intermittent even at 10,000ft due lumpy bits in the way - light aircraft often use mountain frequency 130.0 (if anything at all).

In the circuit I personally like to keep eyes outside to check on the various other flying activities going on and also to monitor proximity to the mountain side that is often flashing past the window rather than watching an altimeter. :wink:

e.g Downwind on LH circuit at St. Crepin is pretty close to the mountain and ends up as a tight(ish) final turn to line up on 16. All great fun when it is smooth but would be a rascal with any significant wind blowing.

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