The Saturday morning dawned calm and bright, so I got my first flight since November, with Marcus in the school Quantum. General handling fine. As it happened, it turned into a bit of a choppy day - some fun in the thermals. First landing... oh dear, Go Around! Second landing, slight balloon but otherwise fine. Third landing, Greaser!
After that I rigged LC in anticipation of an evening flight after some more practice with Marcus - d'unt she look pretty!?
The second session with Marcus produced some more acceptable landings and so I was good to go for the evening - nervous but excited.
There were another couple there - Jason and Hayley - who were using the school Quantum for an evening flight. I was invited to tag along. Take-off was much better than my first effort in November - I had been totally unprepared for the power - and the tourque - of the 912 when flying solo. In November I'd veered strongly off to the right after take-off, and the climb-rate was so spectactuler I got worried! I thought "This can't be right" as I went up at what felt like 45 degrees, so I backed off the throttle!
Ground observers on the day were heard to utter expletives...
Anyway on Saturday the 28th May I got to finally take to the skies of Southern France in my very own Blade 912. Awesome!
I quickly caught up to Jason and Hayley in the Quantum and began to follow them to the West. Snag - can't see b*gger-all as I'm going straight into the sun. Oh well.
A quick radio call to LZ to say I was peeling off (we were on air-to-air as Gap Tower was closed), and I headed North instead to overfly Gap town and the surrounding valleys.
It was a bit of a turbulent evening and creeping doubts about my rigging experience (or, rather, lack of it) began to creep into my mind with each bump. I began thinking "Oh God, I hope I put this thing together correctly!".
Evidently I _had_ put it together correctly as it didn't fold up, so I steeled my nerve and flew on. The scenery was superb and the quality of light in the mountains is exceptional. My first flight over the Alps in LC!
The bumps got worse and I decided to head for home. Blind calls all the way in, a nice landing and I taxied up to the 'Aeropole' as it's known.
Snag - Jase and Hayley have the blipper-button to open the gate. Hmmm... Luckily at that point I heard them on the radio calling 3M out at point Echo. They had decided to curtail their flight as well, due to the bumps.
Good news, no need to wait too long - even at that time of the evening it was getting uncomfortably hot in my flying gear!
Jase and Hayley had called final to land on 21 'principale', the main runway - at that point a skydiving aircraft called final on 03 'Echo'.
Gap has four parallel runways. Working from West to East they are 'Principale', 'Whiskey', 'Mini-piste' and 'Echo'. Echo is about 100m to the E of Principale.
Jason did the sensible thing and did a go-around - having a Pilatus Porter Turbine landing in the opposite direction to you, only 100m laterally separated, I think I would do the same!
I got hotter.
A quick circuit later and they kindly pressed the blipper while still taxying in - I got onto the parking and stirpped off asap!
What a great feeling - flying your own aircraft over mountains!
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