The Alps

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 air all the way through the valley with incredible views across the tops of the Alps. I was unable to raise Marseille radio until we were well into France and eventually gave up and tried Lyon instead who kindly gave us a direct track at 8000ft to Bourg.  At around this time Graham was having some sporadic warnings appear about high temps on his engine instruments which wasn't helping his blood pressure, but with little that could be done about it we assumed it was likely a sensor and continued on. 2.5 hours of pilots delight and we are safely on the ground at Bourg just in time for breakfast.

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