On the way down we decided to take a long route via Chinon and follow the Loire and its castles up to Nantes. For the return we would go direct. However, because of a shortage of gas at La Rochelle, we would have to stop in Nantes. It would probably have been doable to fly the whole trip without refuelling, but that would have left little reserves... Crossing the Channel short on fuel is just not very smart.
We took off from White Waltham at 9.30. Directly south of the airfield, on our route, lied the airspace closed for the Farnborough Air show. We asked for a Crossing from their controllers and off we were ! Total flight time was planned at 3 hours.
Very quickly we were VFR on top of the cloud cover at 8,500 feet, an altitude that allowed us to benefit from the turbo.
At this altitude we were handled by Paris most of the way down to Chinon. There we avoided the nuclear power station (a good idea if you don't want a couple of Mirage fighters on your tail or the Gendarmerie waiting for you at the airport) and started a low level cruise along the Loire.
After the Chinon castle we reached Saumur. On top of the castle, I was looking to see some of the places I spent much time in during my Army days. The Fontevraud practice field certainly seemed bigger when we were crossing it by foot at night.
The Saumur Castle.
The Armour & Cavalry school. If I had known we had an airfield so close I may have taken my ppl then...
We then passed Angers, from where we went straight to La Rochelle. I didn't spot the airfield till late, and only with Pierre's help.
After landing and going through customs (boy, were they not interested !) we got into a taxi and reached our hotel. We got some lunch (or two) then rented bicycles for the next 24 hours . We spent the rest of the afternoon covering about 50km, with numerous breaks to sample oysters and white wine. The island is gorgeous with an incredible variety of landscape, fishing harbours, beaches, forests, fortresses and marshes.
By pure luck we ran into our friends Anne-Laure and Romain who were spending a week on the island.
We then went to the hotel to enjoy the swimming pool and the jaccuzi.
All the while, Pierre was filming for the Ridley Scott project "Life in a day". The next morning he went for another ride while I sat on the terrace working on my FAA Instrument Rating written exam (which I passed the next Tuesday). We then went for a walk and had a great lunch by the sea.
The Met had been forecast to be very bad in the morning but improve by mid afternoon. I filed the flight plan using Afpex running on my home computer, to which I securely logged in from my iPad. That worked fine as I had prepared the template beforehand. We headed for the airport as some light rain fell. After doing our checks we waited 15 minutes for things to clear up further. While we started up an Easyjet flight landed; we entered the runway behind them.... they then backtracked. Quite impressive, you just have to hope they can't put full thrust on... They didn't wave at us like we did. Snobs :-)
We took off straight to the west to overfly the island.
Then up north along the coast to Sables d'Olonnes, and Noirmoutier. There was a very low cloud cover and as we went closer to the north of France it was expected to rise, then lift across the Channel.
We then landed in Nantes, where we refueled.
After taking off we climbed quite quickly. The aim was to go over the scattered clouds to avoid being trapped low under the overcast forecast over Cherbourg. We settled around 7,500 feet. We had a strong headwind there but the turbo gain more or less compensated. We soon reached Rennes and headed off for Cherbourg.
There we tried to talk to the Deauville controller, but they told us to standby. Unfortunately I didn't realize that we were heading for the bit of their airspace that goes on top of Cherbourg. When they finished routing a jet to their ILS they picked us up, but it was too late, we were deep in their controlled airspace without a clearance. Oops. Big issue. They gave us a thorough dressing down on the radio, but let us go without further problems.
As soon as we reached the Channel the weather cleared but we could see England under a solid overcast. Ahead of the Isle of Wight we asked a VFR transit to Southampton at 4,000 feet (granted, great service), then talked to Farnborough for the rest of the journey via Compton to White Waltham, with some ok VOR tracking. My landing was rougher than I'd ve liked, and I'd seriously messed up the Deauville issue. But it was a great destination, and we'll go back with the whole family next year.
