Yesterday,I took two lady student pilots to the coast at Biscarrosse, which is situated on the South West Coast of France below Bordeaux and Arcachon.
This was a rather last minute decision as Patrick Moussy ( CFI of the french students) had arranged to take two of his pupils to this destination.The previous afternoon while planning this trip, he invited us to join them for the flight followed by a swim and lunch.One of his students has a son living in the town of Biscarrosse, who had kindly offered to transport us from the airport to the beach and restaurant.
The day dawned sunny and cloudless with a high temperature of 25 degrees at 8am in the morning!
So we duly arrived early at the club and prepared our chosen aircraft the Robin DR 440/140 F-GZYA for the flight to Biscarrosse.
My students were Stine Angen ( from Norway) and Gwen Jenner ( living in France).
We decided to use this as a Navigation practice for Stine and therefore we took a slightly longer route to enable her to perform touch and go landings at both Perigueux and Bergerac airfields.
From Bergerac we tracked the SAU VOR and finally on the last leg of the journey we had to navigate through a minefield of restricted military areas as we were in the Cazeau military zone.
The friendly military controller spoke excellent English and guided us through the zones, at below 1000 feet.
Stine was excited by the prospect of flying the base and final approach over water, this was a new experience for her and it certainly did not put her off her landing as she touched down on the numbers as light as a feather and expertly exited the runway at the first exit without the need for backtracking.
Patrick and co had arrived a couple of minutes prior to us, they were the first to scramble into the car,looking forward to cooling off in the ocean.
With the temperature now at 34 degrees we settled down under the trees waiting for the driver to make a return trip to pick us up, sipping ice cool water and watching the aircraft practising in the circuit.
When we arrived at the beach we were surprised to see that it was packed with holiday makers, we therefore declined the swim and made our way into the beachside restaurant to enjoy long cool drinks and to enjoy the hoiday atmosphere.
After a wait of about an half hour we were starting to feel hungry watching the huge dishes of mussels etc being brought to neighbouring tables.Thankfully Patrick arrived dripping wet and starving.
We enjoyed a huge lunch and some excellent cross table "Franglais"
With a definite need to check the weight and balance prior to our return flight, we returned to the waiting cars ( two for the return journey) and back to the airport.
On the return journey Gwen was in the left hand seat, we chose the slightly longer route up the coast to Royan and then we tracked east on the edge of the Cognac military zone overhead Jonzac and Angouleme.
Patrick who took the more direct route, and was in the faster Robin DR400/180 aircraft,arrived at Limoges about 25 minutes prior to us and his plane was in the hangar by the time we arrived on the apron.
This day had been a great success and a lot of fun, combining navigation training to a fun destination with an informal atmosphere showing the students what can be achieved when they have gained their PPL's.
After all "flying should be fun"!
Next week's flight will be to either Biarritz or Cannes
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So so jealous......
come down to St Tropez next time......
Posted by: Stuart Morton | 18 July 2009 at 10:46 PM
I am hoping to come to Cannes on Tuesday/Wednesday to meet my daughter and her boyfriend who are holidaying in the area.You might be able to persuede me to stay one more day to do some flying with you!
Posted by: sue virr | 19 July 2009 at 06:34 AM