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Traveling to and Flying in France

Some of these commentaries and accounts of my slope flying over the past several years in France may be useful for temporary visitors living in France, or someone doing business there on a regular basis.

Directions to Menez Hom

For anyone coming from the east, Paris, Chatres, Le Mans, Rennes, St. Brieuc, Morlaix, Landavisiau, Sizun, Chateaulin, are the cities that you will bypass, then finally take the direction for Crozon.  This is your route to Menez-Hom.  From Paris this is just under 400 miles.  From Germany, it is over 700 miles.
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Beg an Fry and the roast road, Brittany

March 25, 2002, Monday

Beg an Fry and the roast road, Brittany (France)  Temp: 6 C, morning; PM temp: 15 C; wind 6-10 knots from the NNE

Back on the road headed south from Primel-Tregastel, to Plougasnou then east along the coast road passing the point, Beg Gracia to again explore the fabled point, BEG an FRY. This time, after lunch, the “holy hour” in France, my wife came along, since she had never been BEG an FRY.  The word “BEG” means “point” in the Breton language. This sunny morning had been virtually windless, temperature was now near 60 F.
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The Bunker Pointe Annalouseten, Brittany, France

March 21, 2002

Pointe Annalouseten, Brittany, (France)   Temp: 13 C; wind 15-20 knots from the WSW

“The Bunker”

Skies are still gray; the wind has relented a bit this morning. After 10:00 AM, it rained pretty hard for three hours.

However! I got two good flights before the rain started. I started with the mini Pilatus, which had only two flights up to today. The launch was fairly easy; I cranked in one click of down trim, since this plane only weighs 19 ounces. It went up like it was on an elevator. Cruising forward in this moderate wind was not a problem. This is a very easy plane to fly.  But I did find that the plane would not roll. So I will have to do some adjustments on the aileron throws.
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Pointe Annalouseten, Brittany, France

Pointe Annalouseten, Brittany, (France)  Temp: 12 C; wind 30 knots from the west

No rain today!  Skies are still gray.

I went over to Pointe Annalouseten at about 9:30 AM and flew for about 30 minutes. Launching the Sagitta was tricky; I had to walk down the path about 20 yards to launch in less turbulence. The plane went up like it was on an elevator. Gulls cruised through the area and I chased them all over the sky.  They like to play. I worked my way slowly backward up the path to the road and kept on a-cruising’ with the German made Sagitta.
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Primel-Tregastel, France

Primel-Tregastel, France Temp: 50 F; 10 C

Subject: Good finish to a bad day

I’ll sum up today: a bad day turned into a good day. This morning I checked the immediate area for south facing slope due to the persistent south wind the last few days. Staying on the north side of Brittany makes it very tough to find a south facing slope.

After consulting a very detailed IGN map, I drove over to the very well to do town of Carantec, about 30 miles away.  This is on the other side of the Bay of Morlaix; in a straight line across the water it is only 5 miles.  But this is Brittany and most travel from one point to another is rather tortured due to the terrain.  There was a fairly high south facing slope there, 200 to 300 feet, but no access due to every inch being private property with very expensive houses on large lots. The wind was blowing 30 knots and the gulls were cruising beautifully over this ritzy area.
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Flew some light wind at the Menez-Hom

Saturday, March 16, 2002

Finally flew in some light wind at the Menez-Hom, Brittany’s highest hill (1000 Ft).  We arrived about 3:00 PM.  This site is about 50 miles from our cottage in Primel-Tregastel. The wind was out of the south about 8 or 9 mph.

The little Pilatus flew for about 10 minutes.  Then I got about a five minute test flight with the Pixel.  This was trimmed perfectly and was very easy to fly.
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More Commentaries on Flying in France

Roissy, France; Charles de Gaulle Airport

The Airbus arrived on time from Chicago: 8:20 AM;  disembarkation was a waste of time.  We were loaded on to special airport tarmac buses some distance from the terminal.  This took at least a half an hour.  Wait on the plane, then wait on the bus.  Luggage pick up was a little slow:  it took 20 minutes: It took another 20 minutes to find the car rental area; this was more annoying due to public phones that didn’t work when we tried to call the car leasing company.

We finally got picked up by the car leasing company, and were driven to the pick up area.  This was very quick.  Two signatures, they loaded our luggage in the car. It was a turbo diesel Renault Megane Scenic.   Amazingly it all fit, luggage, even the Sportube, with the three planes, which easily fit on the back seat from one door to the other. We were on our way at about 10:30 AM.

As we left, I noticed that the Roissy airport had a dingy look to it; remarkable since this was built 20-25 years ago.  Skies were the usual gray of Northern Europe at this time of the year.  We picked up the expressway to the Paris beltline, which is also called the PERIPHERIQUE.

 

This took at least 45 minutes and you better have a pretty good map.  It is better to have a two person team for this: one to drive; one to navigate.  Traffic was absolutely nuts, being worsened by the weaving, high speed, lunatic motorcyclists.  Again, I was disgusted by the run down look of these suburban areas along this expressway.  This is one of the most forgettable places that I have ever driven through, loaded with big ugly commercial, buildings, low cost housing projects, and a chaos of high speed traffic, that one does not want to repeat very often.

The problem of going to Brittany from north of Paris is that you have to get to the southwest side of the Parisan suburbs to pick up A-10, which heads west.  This is a Peage road which is expensive for the 200 miles that you use it.  About $20.00 (23 Euros).  This is the fastest and safest road.  The whole trip was about 350 miles to the town of Plougasnou, on the north Breton coast.  The last two thirds of this five hour trip was driven through rain.  We arrived at 4:00 PM, which was good, considering the two gas stops and the food stop on the Toll road.  Food service is excellent at these restaurant toll road stops, which will also sell you beer or wine with the food.  If you are seen drinking alcohol without eating at these food stops, you are liable for arrest in this country.

It’s not raining now, so I am hoping to go flying this Friday morning when we get some of that gray miserable sky that northern Europe is so famous for, but without the rain.

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