France / Spain Flying Trip

Decided on my 'big trip' for 2005 (well, until the bank balance recovers anyway) to fly down to Spain with a couple of friends on a 'guy trip'. Went with Dan (Canadian next-door neighbour) and Dave (American friend of Dan's) and of course myself (Canadian / British dual national) - there is a joke in there somewhere.

Decided to make a week or so of it, but because I am only IMC rated, had to fly VFR in France and Spain, so very much weather dependant. However, by and large, the weather gods were with us and I did not have to cancel any of the planned flights.

Gloucester to Rouen
As this was a weekday, and it was April, I opted for the 'short sea crossing' and the 'top of London' route. It took a total of 2.7 hours from start up to shut down. This route is of course via the 'altitude and width constrained' route under London TMA and sandwiched between Heathrow, Luton and Stansted - AKA 'Mig Alley'!

Weather was foggy at Gloucester at first, but was clearly going to 'burn off'. Set off in 'low cloud' caused by the lifting fog and got 'on top' by 1000' but all of this cleared once outside of the 'Cheltenham Bowl' anyway. Held 2300' for the London bit and had fun spotting the traffic (I would not be happy doing this route at a weekend when it must be manic!). I had to disengage the 'human auto-pilot' when we spotted opposite direction traffic and had no choice but to fit between a helicopter on one side and a low wing aircraft on the other at a similar altitude - such fun(?). Weather improved and got nice views of Canterbury cathedral and the white cliffs of Dover coasting out.

Rouen is a huge airfield and by the looks of it, massively under-utilised - can't be long before it is discovered by the low cost carriers. Landed on runway 04 after a left hand approach. Cleared customs (by prior notice) and paid the exorbitant landing fee of €10 J. Fuelled both the plane and ourselves (steak avec frites in the airport restaurant). Dan asked for the 'Cheval Steak' assuming it was horse steak (well - they DO eat horses!) and got a pained look from the waiter who explained to this strange chap that spoke some form of French that they do NOT eat horse and that it was a fried egg on top of the steak (‘lahhke aee jock-eeee’ - accompanied by suitable miming gestures). Landing fee a minimal €10.00.



Rouen to Bordeaux
Cracked straight on as planned. Weather good with scattered 'fair weather' CU's at 3500'. Very quiet and few aircraft seen. Crossed the Gironde avoiding the nuclear power station and cleared to approach via reporting points N then NA in turn at Bordeaux at 1500'. I was then cleared for a left downwind join for runway 05 as number 2 to an A320 on 5 mile final.

Bordeaux is a very impressive and busy regional airport, a bit like Birmingham, with lots of 'big boys' and mandatory handling from Air Assistance. Cleared to taxi to Lima (the GA apron) where I joined one other business turbine - I don't think they handle much GA at all at Bordeaux.



Great couple of days with fondue meals, a vineyard trip to Chateau Franc Mayne and lunch in St Emilion etc. Had fun at Dave's expense after we encouraged him to find the way to the town of 'Cedez le Passage' - every signpost referred to it, but we never did find it!



On return, total bill for landing, two nights parking and handling (excellent service by the way from Air Assistance) was €51.00 - crazy money by French standards, but pretty reasonable by UK standards.

Bordeaux to San Sebastian
I was keen to make it to Spain on this trip and set out to good weather. I had planned an inland route, but tried for the coast route through the dreaded R31A1 military area on a weekday on the advice of Flyer Forumites. Headed out to Arcachon at a modest 1500' and contacted Cazaux Military for clearance. He was VERY French and after three 'say agains' it dawned on me that we were cleared only if we could maintain 500' maximum along the coast! However, it was VERY active as we saw jets a few times and I was happy to accept - 500' along the French coast with wide open beaches and sand dunes was too much fun to miss. Needless to say, my height-keeping has improved dramatically as a result!



Cleared through Biarritz along the coast and flew past San Sebastian airport (20 km east of the town) to orbit the actual town a couple of times to get a good look at it. Then returned along the coast and cleared to approach left downwind below the height of the surrounding hills for runway 04. The airport was quite busy with regional commuter turbo-props and a couple of ugly crop sprayers. Landing fee a silly €7!







What a lovely town San Sebastian is. It is clearly still very proud of its Basque heritage. Discovered a potent local beer (Keler) and the very nice local 'green wine'.



San Sebastian to Saumur
Got a good weather forecast from an internet cafe in San Sebastian, and true to prediction, a cold front swept through the night before we were due to go to Saumur. The morning looked OK and was clearing.

The forecast did say PROB 30 TCU and TSRA etc. and got as far as Biarritz when low cloud and rain forced us down to 1500' or so. Couldn't raise Cazaux for clearance for R31A1, so backtracked and cut inland to SAU. Flew through some persistent rain when it started to ease and brighten a bit. Eventually we broke out onto CU's at 2400' with the odd visible small TCU with showers, which we could easily dodge. Routed east around Bordeaux then direct to Saumur.



Again, following advice from Flyer Forumites, I was not surprised to find Saumur Radio unmanned, so orbited the town and determined the wind direction from the wind sock and made blind calls in French for a left hand approach to land on runway 28. Worth noting that they do not accept credit cards for fuel and I had to pay in cash - other than that, they were very helpful and friendly.



Saumur is a lovely town, but we only had one night there as the weather forecast for Saturday was good, but Sunday not so good. We booked into the Hotel de Londres in the town centre (owned by the person who runs the Aero Club at the airfield) and got to see the castle and a bit of the town but that's about it. Saumur warrants much closer inspection on another trip!



Saumur to Le Touquet
Early heavy dew and light fog burned off to scattered CU at 1500', so went 'on top' with sight of the ground through the gaps to 3000'. Passed Le Mans and saw the race circuit with a race in progress. Steered well clear of the nuclear station at Dieppe and routed up the coast. Le Touquet was buzzing and the lady French controller was pretty stressed - a combination of pilots not doing what they were told to do and her clogging the frequency with b*llockings and incongruous detailed taxi instructions.

Seemed to calm down by the time I got there at about 12:45 local and cleared for left hand downwind join for runway 32.

Managed to turn the aircraft and passengers around in one hour flat with customs and re-fuel as I had filed a flight plan for the final leg already at Saumur (as we all know what L2K are like for 'losing' FPL's!).

Le Touquet to Gloucester
Got up to 3500' for the sea crossing and was tempted to climb higher and go VMC on top over the UK, but bottled it coz of the freezing level and went underneath at 2500' most of the rest of the way.

Shoreham and area were very busy. Farnborough Radar was working like a trojan and doing a brilliant job. Lasham was VERY active and warned about an aircraft in my 1200 same altitude at 2 miles - started to weave looking for him when Dave (the back seat passenger) told us how upset he was to miss that great photo of the glider we just passed! Be nice if you told us next time Dave!

Brize claimed to be very busy and refused us FIS unless we were going to transit, so I asked for a zone transit where he gave me 'unknown station wait and remain clear of controlled airspace' - I did think about squeezing between the active South Cerney and the Brize zone (not all that difficult if you know the area) but thought better of it and called Lyneham for a zone transit. They were very helpful and I got between South Cerney and Kemble to return to Gloucester.

Summary
A very good trip with a total of 15.6 flying hours logged and a number of personal flying firsts:

· First flight into Spain
· Furthest I have yet been from home airfield
· First time I have flown two 3 hour legs in one day
· First clearance at 500'
· Visited four new airfields
· First time I have used French position calls

My thanks to the members of Flyer Forum who helped with advice on my postings and it highlights to me the importance of prior planning.

D-Day 60th Anniversary

Having been strangely omitted from the official guest list for the 60th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, Dan decides that he and a colleague of his, Sean, are going to gatecrash and give their Canadian Forces uniforms an airing. How better to get there than be flown in a private plane – OK, actually we had planned it for a few months, but it sounds better the way I’ve just told it.

We already had the hotel booked, Chateau le Chassagne near, well - I’m not sure, but a fair way to the east of Caen and inland from Deauville (as everything closer had been booked for months). The nearest airfield I could use that wasn’t closed for security reasons, was Le Harve, even then I had to formally pre-book.



We set out on Friday from Gloucester. The weather was good, with scattered cumulus at 2500’, so I went ‘on top’ at 4500’.

We crossed the coast at GWC headed directly via SITET to Le Harve. I notice that the clouds below me started to close up and ahead at mid-channel, they look like they have changed in nature and gone ‘solid’. London Information ask warily if I have permission to land at Le Harve. I confirm that I have but they decide to check. They come back and confirm that indeed I have, but the bad news is that the ‘cloud’ I now see is low fog and Le Harve have 300m visibility in fog and are closed at the moment!

Further enquiries confirm my alternates in France are also fog-bound, so I divert to Shoreham. I get distracted on my final approach and make a landing that measures a 7.3 on the Richter scale :-(

We adjourn to the bar at about 12:00 for lunch and of course beer for the passengers (no – that’s fine, you go ahead, I’ll stick with the orange juice!). The forecast is for the fog to move slowly east and clear during the afternoon, so we wait and ring for regular updates.

Meanwhile, Sean and Dan are ‘scooping it up’ at the bar. Dan spots a nice Fosters glass and conceals it in the arm of my windbreaker with a knot tied in the sleeve.



By 16:00 the weather has still not fully cleared in Le Harve, but it is improving fast enough for us to give it a go before Le Harve closes. This time, we get to within 10 miles and are asked to ‘orbit’ by Le Harve who are busy with government officials in various expensive jets shooting instrument approaches. So we orbit, and orbit and orbit – Sean has now gone very quiet in the back. I pester them and we are cleared to approach to five mile – and orbit.

After 20 minutes of holding we are cleared to approach, but they give the cloud base at 600’ above the airfield. I can’t understand this as we are in hazy but clear sky, then the reason become apparent – the fog has lifted to low cloud which starts exactly on the coast and covers inland – the seaward side is fine and clear! I approach at 1000’ on the seaward side of the coast along the cliffs and spot the airfield between the narrow gap between the top of the cliff and the low cloud. The controller helpfully suggests that as I am visual, I can make a low circuit approach and land on the northerly runway with a slight tailwind ‘at my discretion’. So I squeeze the plane between the cliff and the cloud base on the lowest base turn I have ever done, probably 500’ AGL or so. Fortunately, the runway is plenty long enough and the landing is good.

No sooner had I cut the engine, than Sean leaps out of the plane and the reason for his silence becomes apparent – he immediately starts to relieve himself (I swear before his feet even touch the ground!). Meanwhile, an attractive and well dressed French lady is teetering over to where we have stopped! Dan spares her blushes and bounds over to meet her before she see Sean (who is in mid-flow and couldn’t stop to save his life). Turns out she is a ‘meet and greet’ – she is amazed that Canadians have flown ‘all that way’ (she thinks we have come from Canada) in such a small plane!



We clear the terminal and wait for Dan to pick up the hire car and yes, more beer! The hotel book dinner for us in a very nice (but not cheap) local restaurant. Sean is horrified by the bill and proceeds to mop up the sauce from each plate with bread. This is topped off by beer and wine around midnight at the outdoor pool at the hotel. Sean sleeps soundly that night in a shared room with Dan, but Dan is troubled by the sound of rain and sleeps badly (ask him).

On Saturday we head for the Juno beach area and get all the required passes for the next two days, then attend a formal ceremony at the Beny-sur-Mer Canadian military cemetery. The Canadian Governor General was there and nearly spoke to Dan, but a young lad leaped between them – I could see she was disappointed! Dan and Sean meet Canadian Forces colleagues and we are introduced to ‘Smokey Smith’ the only surviving Canadian VC holder.



So on Sunday 6th June, Dan and Sean don their uniforms (yes – they did shrink in-flight) and we drive to Juno beach for the 11:00 we were advised. Just outside Caen, security are turning people away without passes (including actual D-Day veterans – who comment sourly that it was easier to get to the beach in 1944!), but we get through the first checkpoint with our passes. At the checkpoint near the beach, we are stopped again and asked for our special ‘beach passes’ – the ones we have will only allow us to this point apparently. The police relent and ask (with a wink) if we were with the coach in front – a hurried ‘yes’ is sufficient and we are waved on.



Unfortunately, we were given the wrong time, and most of the formal ceremony had already finished, but we saw some of the later events. It was sunny and hot and Sean in particular was suffering in his dark green dress uniform. Having toured the area and met more colleagues, we returned to the car, changed and went back to the beach for a wander, lunch and a few beers.

Following a fly-past by WW2 aircraft, we decide to cool off by going back to the hotel for a swim and freshen up before trying to meet up with their Canadian colleagues in Deauville.

It is at the pool that Dan discovered that his digital camera bounces nicely on tiles, but doesn’t float!

The following day, we head for the airfield, via Honfleur. We stock up on wine at the local ‘Champion’ and are initially delayed by crowds in the town. The cause of the delay was a visit by Queen Elizabeth – she was pretty broken up to have missed Dan! What a lovely little fishing port Honfleur is (mental note – must come back here with the wife). We have a late ‘petit dejeneur’ at the quayside and a wander around the town, then on to the airfield.



The final, unexpected treat was that once airside at Le Harve, laid out in front of us was the Battle of Britain memorial flight, with a Spitfire, Lancaster and a Hurricane (and a spare Dakota DC3). We didn’t have much time, so with the crews permission, had a good look around the Lancaster. I did offer the Spitfire pilot a go in my TB10 if I could try the Spit – but no dice!



A nice uneventful return to Gloucester topped of a really great trip.