TWO DAYS IN PROVENCE

A tale of sun, sea, mountains, storms, overheating, high pressure, low pressure, high ground, low flying, diversions (three!), bad planning, good planning, determination… and jolly good fun. Dave Gibson and Martin Charlick report…

Summer 2019. After being relentlessly chased through the low countries to Norway and back by storms over eight days in June, we were looking for a calmer, shorter trip to enjoy some sunshine and relaxation. Dave’s neighbours in the village where he lives near Glastonbury, have a summer home in the south of France, a farmhouse and smallholding they converted over 25 years ago and where they now spend six months of the year. We were invited (or did we invite ourselves …!) to fly down and stay a couple of nights and share a glass of wine and a swim in their natural water pool.

Weather set fair

The five-day forecast was very fair, with high pressure sitting over France, so we departed Henstridge on the morning of 4 August in blue skies, planning a straightthere one-day flight to Valreas Visan (LFNV) just north of Marseille with three stops, Cherbourg (LFRC) for customs, Amboise Dierre (LFEF) for fuel and Clermont

Above Dave Gibson, standing, Martin Charlick with their comfortable, long range Jodel Mascaret, which they use to its full potential around Europe.

Left The long weekend away entailed a pretty direct trip down to Provence to visit friends. Ferrand (LFLC) to stretch our legs before the final leg, a total distance of roughly 500nm, or between five and six hours in the Jodel.

The outbound Channel crossing was uneventful, the removal of the lower Q41 airway into Southampton now making the Swanage to Cherbourg route more straightforward at a reasonable altitude (4,000ft). We transited talking initially to Bournemouth, then London Information, and skirted around the western corner of mid-channel danger area EGD036 although Plymouth Military didn’t appear to be active, so we switched directly to Deauville Info and then Cherbourg, listening to a mixture of fast French and occasional English.

Warbird companion

On arrival at a very quiet Cherbourg, we spotted a silver Spitfire on the apron and duly parked alongside it (so that they could get some photos of their aircraft with ours… ). The chaps pre-flighting her were preparing the aircraft for a military display over the Normandy beaches. Spitfire 3W-17 is a Mark IX, serial MK732 built at Castle Bromwich in 1944 and initially deployed to RAF Colerne, where it was allocated to 485 squadron (NZ). It is credited with two ‘kills’ over Normandy during the D-Day landings. After the war, in 1947, it went to the Royal Netherlands Air Force for decoy training, eventually being abandoned at Eindhoven. ‘Acquired’, apparently without permission in 1956 by no.14 RAF squadron, it was trucked to RAF Oldenburg in West Germany, and then appears to have passed through Brize Norton, St Athan, Bicester, Coltishall, Coningsby, and Abingdon up until 1980, having respectively been restored, used for instruction and broken for spares. It was restored to airworthiness in Guernsey between 1985-1991 by Dutch Spitfire Flight Ltd, part sold to the Dutch Government in 1993 and is now owned by the RNLAF Historical Flight, repainted in a RNLAF silver scheme and registered as PH-OUQ.

Flat plains of Northern France

After ‘clearing customs’ the French way – a painless process – and paying the landing fee of €12 to the pompier, we lined up at the intersection a third of the way down Cherbourg’s 2,400m Runway 10 and departed to the south-east on our next leg to Amboise, over what is possibly the most tedious, flat unremarkable part of France. Heading south we always seem to lose touch with the flight information service mid-way (there seems to be a dead spot south-west of Caen), but passed several interesting airfields, including Bagnoles De L’Orne set among the trees (the sleepy picturesque spa town is well worth a visit), and Le Mans, a sprawling modern cityscape with its standout motorsport circuit. After crossing the Tours control zone, transit no problem, we landed at Amboise in the Loire valley, to refuel after 90 minutes’ flying. Amboise is like many mid-country French airfields, well-appointed but relaxed and friendly. It’s a gliding field Top Our distinguished neighbour on the apron at Cherbourg was The Royal Netherland Air Force Historical Flight’s Spitfire.

Above Refuelling at Amboise, a relaxed and well-appointed airfield. Mike and Dave also used it for a night stop on the return journey. set away from the town centre at Dierre, alongside the river Cher, with opposite north/south circuits for gliders and power and two 700m east-west hard and grass runways. The Mascaret has 185 litres usable capacity in three tanks, giving up to eight hours endurance with reserves (18 litres ph), although we generally fill to a maximum 120 litres when touring with camping gear and baggage etc. This gives enough to go and come back from many destinations without needing to refill. As we planned to continue the next two legs without a fuel stop, we opted to top off the tanks here, followed by a quick café in the bar.

The Massif Central

From Amboise the route south crosses the gradually rising elevations of the Massif Central, an extensive and beautiful region of high ground and volcanic peaks reaching to 5,000ft and above. With perfect CAVOK conditions, our next stop was Clermont Ferrand to the west of Lyon. The airfield adjoins the city at an elevation of 1,092ft, sitting on a broad level plain with spot heights of 4,800ft close by to the west (runway orientation is 08/26). This is a proper large commercial airfield (think Bristol) with impressive terminal buildings, runway and facilities. It was nearing 1800 local (sunset still being about five hours away) when we contacted Clermont approach frequency and were asked to hold on downwind pending the departure of a Ryanair flight on 08. Surface wind was calm, and we opted for 08 so as to stay out the way of Ryanair and orbited a few times at our 2,000ft (QNH) circuit height, taking in the stunning mountain views

having descended into the valley. We were woken from our reverie by ATC calling to ask us to expedite our landing, as Ryanair were now in fact waiting for us, having changed their minds. With a swift downwind followed by a tight descending sideslipping base leg over the retail park, levelling our wings and alighting beautifully on the tarmac directly in front of their cockpit, we thought we would show the Ryanair crew and passengers a thing or two about flying, but I don’t think they actually noticed.

Then we had the fun of trying to navigate our way around this large airport. We didn’t need ‘handling’ or the main terminal, so we were directed to the GA terminal at ‘parking Mike’, but not told how to get there. After a few polite prompts along the way we found ourselves at a most friendly little flying club portacabin by the airport fence, at the back of the terminal complex, which was just closing up for the day. We paid our landing fee (€12!) and had a quick refresh before pre-flighting our final leg for the day to Visan, an expected easy flight time of just over an hour.

Density what?

The departure was interesting. The evening weather remained CAVOK calm and clear, although it had become very warm as we proceeded further south. Temperature on the ground at Clermont was 33°C. From our 1,092ft take-off elevation, we needed to head south-east and clear a 4,000ft ridge about 20 miles on.

The valley gradually rose along the way and our initial intention was to climb out to 5,000ft and cruise at that level as the high ground continued more or less to our destination.

However, the Jodel climb rate in the warm evening sunshine was abysmal or non-existent and we were forced to orbit a few times at the edge of Clermont’s zone, coaxing the old girl to gain a few feet before passing over some low hills and entering the long valley climb. By then, the engine oil temperature had risen virtually to the red Above The Massif Central rises to over 5,000ft and can generate severe thunderstorms in the heat of the summer.

Right Clermont Ferrand’s plate. It’s a large and busy airfield but there is a pleasant GA area behind the terminal, and ‘handling’ isn’t mandatory.

line at 100°C as we were trying to climb and ease off the engine at the same time, a vicious circle. Our carburettor temperature gauge was also showing over 30°C. Reducing speed to ‘best angle’ (60kt) made things worse and we eventually worked out that increasing speed to around 70kt (5kt above ‘best rate’) improved air cooling of the engine and we began to see a small rate of climb on the VSI. The air didn’t seem to get much cooler

with altitude, but the oil temperature crept down as we got into the faster cruise. Had we checked on the ground, we would have seen the Density Altitude for the airfield elevation and high temperature, was in excess of 4,500ft. Lesson learned.

Final destination

As flight visibility conditions were perfect, with nil wind, we came out of the climb at 4,000ft and decided to skim the ridges and go around the higher points, and we enjoyed a relaxing cruise the rest of the way. There was little other traffic about, and the radio was generally quiet. We reached Visan shortly after 2000 local (1800GMT). Valreas Visan is a small rural grass airfield (elevation 472ft) with a couple of hangars and a 1,000 m grass runway oriented 02/20, and at first it was difficult to spot, until we realised we were looking for a green grass strip. It was in fact brown in the heat of summer. Approaching Runway 20, looking south, Marseille and the Mediterranean are about 40 miles further beyond the distant horizon… On arrival, the clubhouse and hangars were closed and the airfield deserted, other than our friends who came to meet us. The car journey to their farmhouse in the hills took about an hour and we were soon enjoying a lovely Provence stew and a few glasses of wine, listening to the cicadas before retiring after a long day flying. The next day we had a gentle day of sight-seeing in the village of St Auban sur L’Ouveze, Provence AlpesCotes. Followed by a superb dinner in the local restaurant, a short walk from the farmhouse.

The trip home

Having flown down to the South of France in one day so as to maximise our time with Dave’s friends in St Auban, we took our time and split the journey back, with an overnight stop halfway at Amboise. The weather on the morning of our return to the airfield Top Valreas Visan, final destination. Searching for a grass strip in generally green terrain was difficult, until they realised in summer it’s a scorched brown airstrip!

Above Dave and Martin enjoy a meal with their hosts in St Auban. was no longer so nice and a line of cloud, storms and rain, with bases on the tops of the higher ground, was moving west to east, across our intended track. We considered two options, one to go north-east up the Rhone valley, via Lyon, staying low, but this was likely to become blocked by the weather as the day went on; or initially go west, skirting the storm stream, until we could turn north after it passed. This also left us the option to bale out to the south towards clearer conditions at the coast if things turned nasty. After pre-flighting the aircraft and refuelling, the sky to the west and north was beginning to look ominously dark, with gathering cloud and rainstorms gathering. We decided to take-off and take a look to see if there was a way around, as it remained completely calm on the ground with blue sky directly above us, and it was possible that our low perspective made things look worse than they were. The forecast for airfields to the west was pretty good.

The windsock was beginning to slightly flutter, but we lined up on the brown grass and took off and at 50ft were caught and heaved over about 45° by a giant gust of wind from the right. Immediate stick forward to maintain speed and then level the wings we climbed round into the circuit as rain started to spatter on the canopy. It was pretty evident from our new viewpoint that the storms were both nearby and impenetrable and we needed to get back on the ground. We landed without further incident in still wind (!) and just about managed to get the Jodel undercover in the hangar before the heavens opened.

Finally on our way

The storms passed within the hour and we set off again in fine conditions to the west routing to Brive (LFSL), a large commercial airport as a halfway stop, then north-west to Amboise, past Limoges. Air temperature was much cooler and we had no trouble climbing to our cruise altitude of 3-4,000ft. In this part of the Massif there is a lot of active military airspace (base 4 ,000ft). The controllers asked us to remain below their airspace, so we continued in good but slightly bumpy conditions at very low level (AGL 200-500ft /QNH 3,500ft!) jumping ridges and following valleys.

The weather visibly cleared so we changed plans and turned north to Egletons (LFDE), a smaller airfield in the hills at elevation 1,859ft (with spot heights at 3,200ft in the vicinity), with an 820m hard runway. They were not flying, although they answered the radio and gave us joining information for Runway 25, which involved a circuit and descent over the surrounding trees, all very pretty. There was no landing fee and we took the opportunity to stretch our legs across the apron and chat with the few members in the flying club.

We noted the Piper PA28s used by the club in the parking area and also mused over a safety poster on the clubhouse wall as we walked out, which warned about ‘checking your performance’…

Having got through the worst of the weather we were feeling pretty relaxed about the next leg to Amboise, which was straightforward as we passed out of the Massif area. The Jodel was running fine and our fuel load was lower, having used about 40 litres coming in from Visan. We readied and took off on Runway 25, at which point we noted that the line of trees in front of us was in fact above Above Heading west for Brive to try and skirt around the weather and then turn north.

Below The chart for Egletons rather too subtly shows a worrisome ridge, if it’s hot and you’re heavy, off the end of 25 that is not obvious from the field. us, and we were also surrounded by forested hills. The Jodel went into poor climbing mode (again) and setting ‘best angle’ speed did not appear to be improving the picture. A later review of the airfield plate revealed that a ridge sits at 100ft above the runway, 750 metres from the 07 threshold.

We fettled our way around the trees and through a depression, considering possibly turning around, although low speed and poor performance was giving concern. Eventually, we cleared the scenery and began climbing safely to the north. On reflection, we should have reviewed the airfield plate before take-off and taken heed of the clubhouse sign. That very close spot height on the climb out is not easy to appreciate unless you look carefully.

We tend to think that the Jodel is capable of getting in and out of anywhere at any load, because that’s what we’re used to in the UK, so we rarely consider performance. However, the higher summer air temperatures in France and especially the higher elevation of the airfield we were visiting (almost 2,000ft AMSL), should have given us pause for thought.

Amboise nightstop

Once we got the speed up beyond best rate, the aircraft climb improved considerably. We settled into a pleasant flight all the way to Amboise, cruising at around 3,500ft the rest of the way, with the slightly odd experience of the ground gradually falling away as we moved north beyond the Massif, our height increasing but without change of altitude.

We had reserved to stay at a provincial French hotel, Le Pigeonnier, on the outskirts of Amboise, at SaintMartin-le-Beau, a favourite from previous trips. But when we called from the airfield, they were deeply apologetic but had ‘double booked… so we ended up in a Best Western in the town centre. We were able to admire the magnificent château and enjoyed our evening meal at one of the numerous excellent restaurants in the old part of town.

Next day the sun rose to crack the stones, with blue skies, calm winds and CAVOK all the way to the coast (170nm) and home. However, with only 10 minutes to run, an unremarkable two-hour leg to Cherbourg in near perfect weather came to an abrupt end because of a line of thick, low, rain cloud suddenly appearing from the west

and sitting right over the airport. We descended to just below 1,000ft QNH to see if we could continue below the cloud, but it looked unforgiving. A call to Cherbourg Tower confirmed that their cloudbase was at 400ft (airfield elevation is 459ft so that matched what we were seeing aloft and was too low for us). We diverted to Caen to the east, in perfect sunshine, to clear customs and file a flight plan for home.

A check of the weather at Caen, blue skies out the window, and Cherbourg was now CAVOK! and the Bournemouth TAF had their cloudbase forecast no lower than 1,500ft, so we thought we could safely head out to sea at height and reduce altitude as we approached any lowering cloud at the English coast, with the option of returning.

Channel weather

We set off up to 4,000ft with no issues, then climbed to 5,000ft to go above some scattered cloud to remain in the clear. However, as we moved further out to sea, the cloud became layered and thickening. We started to reduce altitude (keeping Deauville Information advised of our intentions) as we approached the FIR boundary and then continued to descend to keep in the clear as we talked to London Information. It soon became clear that mid-Channel on the UK side, the cloudbase was not improving and after several stepped descents to maintain VMC, we finally got to 1,000ft (still in sight of the surface) and decided to turn back. Although we’d been in the air for nearly an hour, we were only 20 miles off Cherbourg, our original earlier destination, and we diverted there and landed to take stock and refuel.

A cunning plan

Just 55 minutes flying time from Henstridge but blocked by cloud streaming from the west… the general weather situation did not look good either. A severe Atlantic low was moving in overnight and looked set to ground us in Cherbourg for three days if we stayed there, with rain, strong winds and clag forecast, not a happy prospect. So, we hatched a plan. The French coast looked good all the way up to Le Touquet, and we thought that if we couldn’t get across the Channel, we would rather stay there than Cherbourg for three days. Also, if we flew east into improving Above The beautiful Château Amboise, which overlooks the river and dominates the town.

Below Thwarted by weather on the direct Cherbourg to south coast route, we headed towards Le Touquet and jumped across the Channel as soon as we were able in VMC. weather, we would likely see the English coast as it narrowed towards Dover and if so, could cross directly in VMC. We planned to fly in a straight line from Cherbourg direct to LT which would take us out to sea close and parallel with the FIR boundary (there was no active airspace or danger areas to concern us), while maintaining contact with French ATC. We had our fabulous drysuits on, with PLB and lifejacket, so felt quite comfortable embarking on what would be a long sea crossing out of gliding range, but in sight of the French coast, and having filled our tanks, now had over six hours endurance.

After an hour in the air and about 25 miles out, abeam Dieppe, we started to make out the English cliffs in fair and sunny conditions. We called Lille Info and asked to file an airborne flight plan to cross the FIR boundary and route direct to Lydd. Once in the English FIR, we contacted London Information and asked them to cancel the Lydd routing as we now intended to head west down the coast as far as possible. London Information was very helpful and provided us with weather for Bournemouth, from which we could see that conditions were poor, as expected, in the west, so continuing the coastal route was not viable. The actuals for Southampton and Boscombe showed cloudbase at 1,500ft inland, so we opted to go Chichester, Popham, Old Sarum, Compton Abbas, Henstridge – and see how far we could get.

Although the sky grew darker and the cloud lower, we went north around Southampton talking to their controllers as we passed first over Popham, then through the Boscombe MATZ (not active after 1630), avoiding their ATZ. We knew that we could drop into Popham or Old Sarum (still open then), if we had to turn back.

With cloud lowering to 1,200ft and starting to rain, we passed Compton and Henstridge came into view. We gratefully landed from a straight in approach for 25 (as it was then), arriving at 1800 local, after three hours in the air from Cherbourg.

We packed the aeroplane away into the hangar and loaded our stuff into the cars. Thirty minutes later, the worst of the weather arrived. It was a challenging return leg, but felt very satisfying to have the ‘plan come together’. Undoubtedly, we didn’t get everything right on this trip, but we improved our skills and rose to the challenges with some excellent teamwork and decision making. After all, it is said that ‘experience is the sum of all the mistakes you make in life’.

All this for two nights in Provence! ■