Motorbikes and the Dordogne

A Winter day out

Got up this morning to a cold day with bright blue sky and winter sun. There had been a frost overnight and by 11 O'clock the temperature was up to 5 degrees.
Just after lunch time found us at the airfield and getting the Tanarg out of the hangar. Winter days are great for flying as the air is thicker and engine, propeller and wing performance is much better. Jude and I donned our warm flying suits and gloves and took off for a flight around the local area. 10 minutes later we were at 2800 feet and enjoying the calm air air and fantastic visibility. We could see the snow capped mountains of the Massif Central about 90 miles away to the east.
We wandered over to Wim's airfield but there was no sign of him. We continued to Galinatt airfield where we could see Regis's aircraft on the ground, we waved. Jude asked over the intercom whether we should go south to Sarlat/Domme airfield and see what was going on there. We landed there 45 minutes later after flying around at 60 mph (100 kmh). The microlight hangar was open when we arrived overhead, so we know that Jean-Michel would be there with his Aircreation Trek and a hot coffee. After taxing to the hangar we could see that the Trek had the HKS engine running. We shook hands with Jean-Michel and accepted the hot coffee as he was about to take off to give a flying lesson.
While we waited for Jean-Michel to finish buzzing the circuit, a Skyranger landed. The pilot came accross and was very freindly as are most French microlight pilots. Shortly after him two autogyros arrived and Jean-Michel landed with his student. Time for another coffee.
As we were preparing to leave the autogyro pilots asked if they could come along and have a look at our airstrip. We said yes, of course. We are used to flying with Wim and Regis and have to try and keep our speed down to 55 mph to fly with them, which is a little slow for the 100 hp Tanarg. The autogyros were a different matter, they cruise at 80 to 85 mph. We took off first and set the Tanarg to fly at 70 to 75 mph with an autogyro at each wingtip.
25 minutes later we landed at our strip and were given a fantastic flying display by one of the autogyros. We waved and off he went.
All in all a great days flying even if it was cold and we had only flown for 70 minutes.

posted by madman @ 5:44 pm