Charlie calls up one day and says: “how about flying down to Angoulême for a bistro lunch in the terminal restaurant?”. Most definitely!
Here’s a pictorial log of our lunchtime out – a great way to spend a memorable day at a modest cost. Thanks to Charlie’s good-hearted nature he is happy to pilot our guests staying with us at Gites in Charente for similar pleasure flights, subject to his availability and the weather, of course. A great idea for a gift flight or just a fun flight.
Departure from Couhé Flying Club:
The Terminal Building, Couhé
The crew:
Charlie Dalgleish – retired BA captain, member of Couhé Flying Club
The Pilot
Drew Rule – former Army Air Corp Blue Eagles display pilot
Another man who knows how aeroplanes work!
The passengers:
Passengers ready to board
The aircraft:
The Aeroplane: a Robin D40
Pre-flight checks ….. and there are plenty of them:
Check the map for directions – just follow the N10
More checks before take off
Departure:
Airborne and on our way
Arrival at Angoulême Airport:
Final Approach to Angoulême
Disembarking for the restaurant
With lunch finished we were cleared for take off for the return to Couhé, passing from Limoges air traffic control and into Poitiers air traffic control. The headsets and microphones that we all wore made this like listening to the team radio in F1 and communication with air traffic control temporarily silenced the chatter in the plane from the rest of us.
We were cleared to descend to take photos of landmarks, in this case our gîtes and house below:
La Ferme de l’Eglise from about 1500 feet, Church next door, pool out back
Touch down back at Couhé Flying Club:
Disembark and fill with fuel for the next flight out
Facts and Figures:
- Available to parties staying at Gites in Charente. Space for three passengers.
- You need to take your passport, since the destination airport/landing strip may ask to see it.
- Costs are only fuel …… this is about 150€ per hour ….. and lunch, about €15 each, depending on what you have!
- How far can you go on a flight out? Couhé to Angoulême is actually only 16 minutes of flying time, but we made the most of it, overflying our respective houses and doing some aerial sightseeing. Niort is about 20 minutes, La Rochelle is about 40 minutes and Ile d’Oleron is about 50 minutes, just to give you an idea.
- Charlie does this because he loves flying and would prefer to fly with others for company and who enjoy it with him. We bought him lunch on the day, by way of thanks.
To find out more about staying with us at here at La Ferme de l’Eglise and activities for the summer and winter visit our web site Gîtes in Charente and have a look at our blog posts. You can make an enquiry using the form below.
Thanks to Drew Rule and Brett Taylor for some great photography.
I had only ever flown on commercial passenger flights before , so this was my first flight in a small plane, i found it very exciting, great food and great company, the whole experience made me feel like a VIP. Brett Taylor
It was great to get the pilot’s view of everything – the approaching runway, the communication with air traffic control – and the informality of club flying. Great fun! Passenger John Wilkin.