Tuesday flight

[alan_k]

After a very misty morning that did not clear till lunchtime, the afternoon offered superb conditions, clear blue sky and very little wind.

I set off up the field at 4:30 local time and took off at 5:18. I headed into what little wind there was towards a village called La Lande, once overhead I realised the wind was so slight it wouldn’t make any difference to out and return durations, whatever direction I flew.

I turned around, now facing the sun, and remembering something Simon said about it being a good idea to have mug shots on our avatars, I took a snap, maybe a bit too much of a close –up:

I continued back the way I came, back over the strip at 46°31’9”N 1°18’45”E, for anybody that’s remotely interested where I fly from:

There is always agricultural activity in a field somewhere about and I spotted this field being tilled. I wondered why the farmer had left what appeared a fairly wide grass border, shown by the arrow:

I was flying at about 1000 feet and experiencing a little thermic activity. I watched the vario for a bit, thinking of the posting by Morgy with his +6 –4 activity, nice to have feedback on conditions others fly in as well as the photos. The vario touched +3 –2 once but generally it was a lot less. Plenty of enjoyment from just bimbling along enjoying the view:

There is quite a lot of forested area around, fortunately with plenty of gaps to afford safe landing if required. I flew over a little hamlet called La Caquignolle (try pronouncing that on a tube of wine gums) at 46°31’39”N 1°14’29”E. It is uninhabited normally but is used as a meeting point when a hunt is on. I also saw a tub with wild boar heads in it when I was walking around there some time back so presumably a bit of butchery also goes on there:

I flew on a good while longer, the sky to myself at my height but plenty of jet traffic higher up. I spotted another field being worked on, this time a bit of muck spreading. You can see the darker band level with my knee in the photo. I spotted the muck heap that the trailer was being loaded from, centre of the photo, it must be a usual position because you can see a heap on Google Earth from 2 years ago at 46°27’59”N 1°16’1”E:

I was starting to feel the cold a bit at this stage but was now heading back towards the strip anyway. After a nice soft landing and packing the kit I took this final shot showing some of the big boys way up:

I didn’t use the speedbar at all and my fuel consumption was 3 litres for a flight time of 53 minutes, so well chuffed with the economy. On plotting the track later I measured 20 miles.

Cheers,

Alan

[coggie49]

Hi Alan

Great photos as usual, in the UK farmers leave the headland uncultivated as part of there set aside allowance I believe , loads of them round our way do it.

I could be wrong of course, he may have left it to walk his dog or ride his horse around, LOL

Dave