francoflyers

For Sale: French Property on Private Airfield

A very large plot of land (2.4 hectares = 5 acres = 24000 square metres) in a very secluded part of a private airfield called the Aerodrome de Gajoubert (LF8753) situated about half-way between Limoges and Poitiers. The road leading to the land is tree-lined and is only used by the owners as it is a cul-de-sac and it serves only our property.

On the land you have the following properties:

1. A hangar of 450 square metres in which one can comfortably park 5/6 PA28 or Cessna 172 aircraft. In the hangar, there is an apartment which is habitable, consisting of an en-suite bedroom, open plan lounge/diner/kitchen and another wc.

2. A house ( 225 square metres ) — recently built — The walls, roof and windows are finished as per photo, but further interior works are required to make it habitable.

3. There is a plan approved for a third property which is to be built. Electricity, water and septic tanks are in place.

Access to the runway is 24/7 and 365 days of the year. The runway is owned and maintained by Mr & Mrs Fort who live next door, and the service charge is only 70 euros per year.

The land is linked to the runway by a private taxiway which is part of the land. The runway is 700 metres in hard surface and parallel to this runway is a 1000 metres grass runway. For a pilot, apart from the asphalt runway which can be used all year round, you can take off and land as many times you wish and you have freedom of the sky. On landing, you vacate the runway by your own personal and private taxiway that leads to your hangar, and above all at no cost for parking and no landing fees.

Friends can fly in and visit you any time throughout the year, and park in your hangar or on your land in front of the hangar.

You can fly to Paris in 1.5 hours or 50 minutes to La Rochelle which is an excellent seaside resort or to Barcelona in 2.4 hours.

Guide Price c£350,000.

For further enquiries, please contact Esteban on:

Tel: +44 (0)7415735125

Email: estebandwarka@googlemail.com

My PPL Story

I work in Strasbourg in the north-east of France and in 2007 I started taking flying lessons at a small airfield (Sarre-Union, LFQU), set in idyllic countryside on the Alsace – Lorraine border. As I work full-time, I was only able to take flying lessons in the evenings after work and at weekends.

When the time came to think about taking my ground exams and the skill test, my French instructor and I realised that my French was not sufficiently good enough to allow me to sit the exams in French (I am Turkish and other than Turkish I can only speak English). The French aviation authority did not accept our proposal of me sitting my written exams in the UK and then taking my skill test in France with a French instructor because they considered that the ground exams in the UK were “organised and conducted by private establishments” rather than by an official body and, as such, they would not accept their results.

I then started looking for a solution and a helpful pilot at PPRUNE suggested that I contact Sue at Nearly Heaven. I subsequently travelled to Limoges with my wife and we set up camp at La Chataigneraie.Before ­going to Limoges my flying experience at controlled airports was limited to a couple of trips to a small international airport near my home base (Metz-Nancy-Lorraine, LFJL). But, as the area near my home airport has a number of military corridors, I have plenty of experience ducking underneath them and – weather permitting – climbing over them!

Sharing the airport with passenger jets at Limoges, talking to the control tower before making any moves and making regular position reports seemed at first too daunting a task but it did not take me long to feel very comfortable with it. The controllers at Limoges speak very good English and are used to dealing with GA students and pilots, hence the explanation for their non-exhaustible patience!

The experience I gained there was invaluable and has made me confident in manoeuvres such as expediting a take-off, approaching and joining the circuit at a controlled airport, orbiting on downwind to wait for an incoming passenger jet and extending the downwind leg to allow a small plane to take off or land.

Sue is a very good and thorough instructor and, while keeping a very careful and discreet eye at the control panel at all times, she lets one learn from one’s own mistakes. I still have fond memories of our adrenaline-packed touch and go’s at the 585-metre long St Junien (LFBJ) airfield, and simulated engine failures over Esteban Dwarka’s private runway while Esteban was waiving at us from the ground.

The area near Limoges is also breathtaking and I particularly enjoyed a cross-country navigation lesson to La Rochelle (LFBH) together with Sue and my wife (unfortunately my wife does not share my sentiments about that trip because she is not a great lover of seafood nor does she like flying!).

The seafood restaurant at the harbour was fantastic and I would definitely recommend it. Unfortunately, no matter how much I begged Sue, she did not allow me to fly back to La Rochelle as part of my qualifying solo cross- country navigation; I think she somehow sensed that I would have parked the plane and gone back to the seafood restaurant at the harbour! Instead, on my solo cross-country flight she sent me to Poitiers (LFBI) and Niort (LFBN). I planned it so that I flew mostly during lunch time when the airports and the skies were empty (apart from the “fighter at 12 o’clock and approaching” which I never saw...).

During our two-week stay at Nearly Heaven I also managed to pass all my seven ground exams. Studying one subject after another in a short period of time worked well for me because it became a part of a daily routine and, as the subjects are all related, the fresh knowledge of one subject helped me to tackle the new ones. When, at the end of the two weeks, the time came for the skill test, it started to rain! Although I was disappointed at the time, it gave us another opportunity to return to Nearly Heaven some three weeks later.

I took my skill test on 1 June in my favourite plane of the Aéroclub de Limoges, the F-GYDD. The weather was fantastic and I had never before held my altitude and heading so precisely which made the first leg of the navigation part (dead reckoning) dead easy. My examiner Mike Grierson with his positive and gentlemanly attitude made me feel very comfortable and at ease. At the end of the exam all I could think of was that I had just had a very enjoyable two hour and fifteen minute flight with a very knowledgeable passenger!

I cannot wait to return to Limoges– this time as PIC in a plane – staying at Nearly Heaven and exploring the south-west of France and possibly Spain from there.

 And while I was busy flying and studying, my wife settled into a routine of her own, catching up on reading when – especially during the first week – the weather made staying indoors at the very comfortable farm house a more preferable option, and otherwise exploring the Limousin and Dordogne countryside on foot, by bicycle (courtesy of La Chataigneraie) and by car. A considerable chunk of almost every day she spent playing with the ten adorable, but increasingly sharp-toothed, puppies. Yet when it came to choosing livestock to take back by way of a souvenir, she opted to buy two young chickens at a market in St. Yrieix-la-Perche, to join the chooks we already have at home. She named them Phoebe and Lucia, after Sue’s very friendly and helpful assistants at La Chataigneraie. For our second week we were joined by a couple of friends; they were accompanied by much better weather and also thoroughly enjoyed their stay.

Ugur Erdal