Fair Stood The Wind For France

Saturday June 3rd was a brilliant day’s flying for me and Niels. The long awaited trip to France was finally on! The weather forecast for the day looked good and HALC was ready to stretch her wings on a longer trip than she was used to.

When you are based in the North of England it makes a day trip to France a little more demanding due to the greater distance and planning required. Those pilots on the South coast have only a thirty or forty minute flight to reach foreign lands but for us it is much longer.

I have spent nearly all my flying time in England and so a steep learning curve for Niels and myself meant we were in a huddle trying to work out flight plans and customs forms to ensure we broke no laws and got it all right. Well we did get it mostly right but the time spent on planning meant we had a little less time in France than we would have liked. Not to worry, we know the ropes now. Next time we will be faster with our planning!

The day started for me at 9am at Barton where I arrived and pre flighted our Arrow for the day’s flying. She had not flown since I completed my refresher training on the Thursday but I gave her a good look-over, declaring her fit to fly after 20 minutes or so. We just needed to add fuel and that could be done when Niels arrived.

The original plan was to fly out of Barton to Lashenden-Headcorn where we would refuel and set off over the channel. We planned to go to Le Touquet and Le Harve and return the same evening. We filed our flight plan from Lashenden to Le Touquet before we left Manchester and then we were off. We uplifted fuel and set off through the low level route and then headed to Lichfield NDB and routed to Daventry VOR, Henton NDB, Lambourne VOR and Detling VOR before positioning to the West of Lashenden to join downwind left hand for runway 29. The article in June's Pilot magazine was very useful for tips and the flight worked out well taking 90 minutes in the air for 202 track miles excluding the little diversion to the west to position.

We landed on the grass runway and this was the first time I have landed on a runway with no designators! No big white number 29 on the threshold to confirm you have the correct runway. Lashenden is a very different place to visit. For a start there are parachutists coming down all the time and the place was packed with flyers, spectators and all kinds of flying machines. There was a happy buzz of activity around the place.

We wanted fuel but did not taxi to the pumps, instead shutting down the engine to protect our prop. The taxing area near the pumps was full of stones and very rough. A friendly local helped us push our bird to the pumps and I refueled her myself with 73 litres of avgas at £1.37 a litre. Ouch!!! More planning ensued as we enjoyed a drink and a bite to eat.

Short final for Lashenden runway 29

Niels "masterminds" the route into France

Finally we were ready to leave for the cross channel leg routing out to Folkstone, over the channel to a position north of Boulogne before flying down the coast and into Le Touquet. Niels was doing this leg and all went well. The visibility over the channel fell markedly and as we approached the French coast it was still poor at around 5000 metres. However the coast is a good line feature to follow and we were soon downwind right hand to land on Runway 32. Niels extended our downwind leg as we failed to see a Cirrus on a four mile final. Eventually we landed after a flight of around 35 minutes. We were on French soil at last.

A rather murky Le Touquet as we position on a long final to runway 32

Just to prove I'm not making it up!

We got ourselves a drink at the restaurant next to the airport where we met two fellow flyers on their way back to the UK. They told us how nice Le Touquet town was and so we decided not to fly on to Le Harve but to get a taxi into the town for some food and a look around.

The people at the airport were very friendly as I filed our return flight plan and they kindly telephoned for a taxi to take us the short ride into town. Eight euros and 10 minutes later we walking up one of Le Touquet's narrow streets heading towards the sea front. It really is a very nice little town with lots of shops and pavement restaurants where you can sit in the sun and people watch.

We had a walk on the promenade and were then confronted by at least six young ladies, one of which was looking to kiss one tonne of men. The things girls do before they get married! I offered my services right away, kissing her on both cheeks and declaring my weight as 170 pounds. This was added to their running total and all the time this was going on we were being filmed. For proof I presume. In France less than an hour and one French girl kissed already. Can't be bad!

We then sat down outside at one of the many street cafes, ordered a meal with a drink and spent about an hour soaking up the sun and the atmosphere. It was very nice and we were glad we hadn't pressed on to Le Harve. You have to stop and smell the roses sometimes.

What! Drinking coffee in this heat?

A taxi back to the airport had us ready to return to England. We had flight planned to return via Boulogne, the Lydd VOR, Dettling VOR, Lambourne VOR and then west across the North of London into Denham airfield to clear customs and close our plan.

This leg again went fine and we landed to a nearly deserted Denham in search of fuel. There was a bit of a panic when they could not find the key to the fuel pumps but it was eventually uncovered and I again refueled myself adding 80 litres of avgas at £1.32 per litre, 5p cheaper than Lashenden. Thanks to the girl at Denham who went out of her way to help us despite the late hour, I think she was an instuctor based there. All the people we met on the day were great.
We took off from Denham at around 7:45pm and we routed to Henton, Daventy, Lichfield and up the low level route to join downwind right hand for Barton's runway 27 right (will 27 left ever be reopened?) We saw five hot air ballons in the sky as we departed Denham but other than that it was quiet all the way home.

The landing at Barton was just after 9pm and the aerodrome, like Denham, was almost deserted. They'd even closed the hanger and so we had to leave HALC out all night. By now me and Niels were both tired but happy to have completed a great day's flying. We learned a lot during the day and armed with the confidence this brings, hope to embark on another overseas trip fairly soon.