Route:
Leg 1: LFMK – GAI – SAU – LFBE
Leg 2: LFBE – CNA – NTS – REN – LFRD
Up early again, but this time, buoyed by my long trip to Carcassonne and the fuel left, I decided to try for a direct to Dinard, weather permitting and unless there was a howling headwind.
Well, the weather kind of settled that one. The back of a warm front was still crossing the west coast of France and the cloud base was horrible and only lifting in the afternoon. So change of plan – we could all go to La Rochelle for a leisurely lunch then onto Dinard for the late afternoon.
So off we went. Did an orbit of the old town for some pictures then set track to 2500’ for GAU. The height of the hills on track and the cloud base made me change my mind in flight and asked Tolouse Information to be routed via the overhead of LFIT (and lower ground). They agreed after a while but advised us to fly east of LFCX due to aerobatics.
I was beginning to wonder what the fuss was about the weather as we started to see blue skies with scattered lower clouds. As we approached SAU, I changed to Aquitaine Information and advised them of our plans. They asked if I wanted the weather for La Rochelle – uh oh! They told me it was 200’ cloudbase in 300m visibility! I guess a VFR approach is out then? I asked about Royan (one of my alternates) and that was worse. OK, looks like the coast is out and so is a run for Dinard. Then the helpful controller advises me that another G registered aircraft had diverted to Bergerac – inland and to the east. I checked the weather and it was OK – 1500’ cloudbase with good vis. So that settled it – lunch in Bergerac.
We diverted and landed on runway 28. As we taxied in we spotted G-BRCD and G-BBSA already on the stand – looks like we all made the same decision – but where was N2923N? It turns out that Derek had made it into La Rochelle (FAA IR) and now felt like one of the kids at school that no-one else liked!
Bergerac is a nice field. Fairly primitive arrivals and departures buildings, but an excellent runway. We taxied over to the pumps (may as well fill up) and caught up with G-BRCD and G-BBSA there as they had also diverted to Bergerac. We parked up and decided on a leisurely lunch with a check of the Meteo, hoping the clag would blow through by the afternoon as predicted.
We trudged over to the Meteo office which was manned by a very helpful guy, who printed out all of the synoptics, TAF’s and METAR’s for us to analyse over lunch. We went to the restaurant and I ordered a Tuna salad. The service was friendly enough, but erratic and painfully slow! The meteo again suggested mid-afternoon would be OK with a bit of scud running and clearer on the northern coast.
We started to wander back to the planes and on the way, both Dan and I bought a ‘three-pack’ of the local Bergerac wine for EUR15. We made our way through departures, where some low-cost FlyBe passengers were waiting for the call. Dan and I had our hi-vis ‘captioned’ T-shirts on again and as we passed, I overheard a woman passenger read the back of our shorts and say ‘thank god we’re not flying with them1’ – Damn – how did she figure me out so quickly! The security people were amused with our shirts and decided not to bother asking for my flying license – good, coz I left it in the bloody plane didn’t I?
We saddled up and taxied out behind a lo-cost BAE125. Pretty cool! Off we went into an easy 2000’ cloudbase and headed north. Timothy first in G-BRCD, followed by Geoff in G-BBSA, then us.
Soon after departure however, we were forced down to 1200’ or so to stay VMC by a broken low layer. I was hoping it was a band of cloud that we would break out of as it looked like it.
I tuned to the Cognac military frequency just in time to hear Geoff get an automated announcement to say that zone transits were approved but flights though the overhead must be at least 1000’ (yep – Friday afternoon and the military have packed up). By now I was struggling to maintain 1100’ on the QNH, so decided to route east around the airfield.
Once past, I called Poitier Information, but was obviously too low for contact. I did however get an air-to-air from Timothy and for a good ten minutes, our three aircraft used Poitier Information as an air-to-air frequency to work out where each other was, as we were all scraping our heads on tops of the cloud and following identical routes with the last two aircraft all scheduled to overtake each other – gets a bit uncomfortable, certainly Dan wasn’t too happy.
Later, still at 1000’ in and out of light thin cloud, but still in sight of the ground, I established that I had overtaken both of them and felt happier. I changed to Nantes Information and requested routing through their overhead (we were VOR hopping). They asked me to continue and would advise me later. As we got nearer, the cloud started to break and lift and I thought ‘great – we are starting to come out of this’. The now broken overcast was pretty thin and I thought I would be on-top by 3000’, but resisted the urge on the basis that it looked like it was clearing up anyway. How wrong I was. The clearing bit was a tease and soon disappeared with me at 1000’ scraping my head on the cloud approaching Nantes.
I was not surprised when they refused overhead transit at that altitude and I routed around the east of the zone. Having been here before, something was nagging at me and on checking the map, I recalled what it was. Buried on the map at the junction of the zone and the approach area was a bloody great big TV mast, right on my track. I spotted it about 2 nm away and started to turn right just as Nantes came on warning me of it – thanks. By this time, I was getting pretty fed up with this and when G-BBSA came on and said they were VMC on top, that was it.
I requested and got authority to climb and the next ‘hole’ I spotted, I also went VMC on top to 3000’ (yes, with glimpses of the ground). Aaahhhh – blisssss! Now that is much better! We headed on to Rennes and changed to Rennes Information. We were granted transit through the overhead and relayed Dinard weather, which seems fine – basically a 2500’ cloudbase and good VFR. I have to say that both Nantes and Rennes Information were very on-the-ball and helpful.
Shortly after passing Rennes, I got an air-to-air from Timothy asking me (as I was now no 1 in our gaggle of three aircraft) to confirm if Dinard was definitely VFR (as he was concerned about fuel in the event of a diversion back to Rennes or elsewhere). By now, the clouds were thickening and we would have to either climb to 5000’ or descend. The holes we came across seemed to show the base of the lowest layer was lifting, so I circled and descended in a hole to 1700’ and was below the cloud. As I went on towards Dinard, we could climb to 2500 with excellent forward visibility. Just to be sure, I picked up the Dinard ATIS which confirmed VFR and I relayed a message through Rennes to Timothy that it was definitely VFR-able.
As we approached, Dinard airfield was clearly visible with Dinard on the left and St Malo on the right of the estuary. We were given a right base join for runway 35 with only a minor crosswind. We were quickly cleared to land and I happily brought the plane in for probably the next best landing of the trip (the best being at Lille where I honestly didn’t realise the wheel were already touching).
We taxied up to the fuel and Dan went off to get the key and ‘do his French stuff’. We struggled with the instructions while both Timothy and Geoff landed and pulled in behind us. Eventually, we called a pompier over who casually flicked the handle on the pump over to reset the litres dispensed reading to zero, whereupon the pump came to life (It says to do this in the French version of the instructions, but not the English version!).
We fuelled up and parked and were starting unload as a Ryanair jet came in to land. This added some urgency on our part as we were determined to beat the passengers to the taxis. I paid the firecrew and walked smartly through a deserted arrivals, where four of us piled into a cab for St Malo. We were lucky that the barrage wasn’t up and we quickly got across the hydro-electric tidal barrage and into St Malo. We were deposited at the Mercure on the sea front within easy walk of the town. A quick shower then Dan and I took off into town by 18:00 for a look-see and a few beers while the rest caught us up and we RV’d at a café at 20:00.
When we met at the restaurant we had booked, it was quite posh, but did not understand vegetarian. Timothy was justly outraged when he was offered only fish or that universal panacea – le omelette! (‘since when was a fish a vegetable’ he queried in his best English accented French!). He decided that he couldn’t eat here and would see us all later. The general feeling was that we should stay together for our last meal of the trip so we all trooped out. Maybe one day the French will cater for vegetarians properly – I have great sympathy as we struggled with this with our vegetarian daughter.
We didn’t have to go far to find a very nice Pizza and other stuff restaurant just inside the main gate on the left. Dan ordered the one-litre beers for a few of us and got stuck in. Dan eventually successfully bartered his ‘Canada’ baseball hat for the beer mug with the waitress. This collection of beer glasses is getting pretty huge I can tell you.
Suitably replete and becoming increasingly boisterous, we wandered back to the Mercure where I collapsed into a semi-drunken snoring heap.
