Europe 2025

Had a phone call from Border force this morning.  Chap said we were 'cutting it fine' to arrive back in the UK on time. I explained we were fog bound and delayed and he seemed to think we would all need to resubmit our GAR forms.  As politely as possible, I informed the official that our General Aviation Report (GAR) was valid all day. Having spent a long time trying to use the website the night before, I really wasn't too keen to repeat the experience.  I offered to call them if/ when we were expecting to depart le touquet later in the day and he gave me a number to call.....so we were fully expecting a welcoming party complete with rubber gloves. The fog finally lifted at Dieppe, but we knew from the Met that Le touquet were still overcast at 1000ft, just about good enough, so we set off.  Very challenging flight in misty conditions scud running over the hills and dodging wind turbines. There were a few points where we considered turning back or diverti...

We pretty much expected the forecast to be right and we are under some very thick fog here in Dieppe. Visibility is about 100m, but we are hoping it should lift enough by lunchtime to leave here and get 30 mins north to Le Touqet. 

Bumpy out of Chartres initially with a bit of a wiggly route through some airspace but was able to eventually climb above the clouds for some surfing.  With 20 miles to run to Dieppe I had to duck under again as it was quite overcast as I approached the coast. I asked some guys in the club if anyone spoke English....Non! Eventually figured out that "the chief' would be landing in 30 mins and I could ask him about fuel and camping.  After he landed, he told me to go find someone else! Basically a lot of time wasted but eventually figured out we can't camp under the wing but a few mins walk away.   We all carted our tents across the apron and setup behind the parachute club.  Was told to wait until the parachute jump plane had finished before we could refuel to get us home, but it was taking forever, so we tried ordering some taxis into town. Here the usual issue arose....there are no cabs. Again. We were about to set off for the 45 mins walk when 2 ol...

Telephoned Le Mans this morning to get clearance in. No issues reported however he did say ATC would close for lunch but to make standard calls.  As we approached just before 12 o'clock I called and asked to join the circuit and was told he would only be able to speak English for 1 minute as he was about to go for lunch. Nothing stops lunch in France. Nothing.  There seemed to be a huge amount of traffic on the radio, all in french, and the controller suggested a divert .....so we did and continued NE for about another 50 miles to Chartres Metropole. Very new airfield with a view of the cathedral. I descended down from the clouds at 5000ft and joined by descending into the downwind at  3000ft making calls in french and telling the guys on the other frequency to use the tarmac as they were launching gliders off the grass. All safely down, some of the guys are now low on fuel and unfortunately the pumps here are broken. A helpful chap called Paul has just taken 3 of the guy...

After a rather delicious breakfast at Bourg, I was stopped as the guys got in their plans. The operations guy/mower man who we had paid €8 landing fee too explained that unfortunately as we had been parked for 10 mins over 3 hours, we now had to pay for additional parking...€11 ! Departed out of Bourg and it was my time for a technical problem. The iEfis was throwing all kinds of warnings about temperatures being too high... I started to turn back when all of a sudden everything returned to normal so I turned back on course and all was well. This was going to be a lengthy flight of around 3 hours, so we all climbed up over the hills to 6000ft and pretty much stayed up there barely touching the controls as the air was cool and smooth at altitude. After quite a long flight, one of my longest, it was time to descend into montmerillion airfield around 20 miles from Poitiers. This landing strip is 600 meters long, so I was unconcerned about landing, but what I didn't realise...

We had to walk a couple miles back to the airfield last night, stopping briefly for some gelato to cool us down. Even though it was after 9pm, it was still got and humid, particularly when walking. We arrived back in swarms of mosquitoes and headed for our tents to try and get some sleep before the alarms all went off around 4am.  We packed up in the dark and at sunrise we were rolling down the taxi way, still with mosquitos swarming around us. Several made their way into the cockpit but their demise was swift once in swatting distance. Bloody things. Climb out in smooth air and I eventually got hold of Milano to activate flightp plans. Around Turin and we climbed into the mountains.  Graham and I had a bit of a moment when we came rather too close together....the problem with our planes is that Graham couldn't see up, and I couldn't see directly down underneath me. Fortunately I spotted Graham and put some space between us 'avanti'! Up to 10500 feet and we had smooth a...