Day 17

May 18th, 2008
Leg 21: Carcassonne (LFMK) – Chateauroux (LFLX)
PIC: Etienne
Flying time: 2h48
Landing fee: EUR 30,86 (highest ever paid by us; fuel was cheap though)

At Carcassonne we discussed for a moment the weather ahead. There was a chance of rain and later in the afternoon even a chance for thunderstorms at our destination Chateauroux. But we would be on the ground 30-60 minutes before the estimated time of this chance would occur. We decided therefore to go.
We were flying at altitudes around 2000-2500ft over the French landscape. We did go to the more flat parts, in order to avoid climbing so we wouldn’t have trouble with the cloud base.
South of Limoges we heard a small plane on the radio leaving for Rotterdam from a field nearby, so flying a good 400 miles. This was fun to hear, and quite a ride too.

Just a interesting field we saw on our way

On our way to Chateauroux we had to zig zag around some rain and pretty gray cumulus clouds. These clouds cause quite some turbulence in the area too and we had our fair share (though not that intensive fortunately).


By continuously changing our course we could avoid all the bad weather and we were pretty happy to see our field in a sunny and dry area. Otherwise we would have to find another field nearby. In France this is not really a problem since there are plenty of airfields. (Though not all of them have the Jet A1 fuel we need every 6.5 hours)

The airfield is also used for testing by Air France

Chateauroux is an airfield in the middle of France (really the heart) and we were surprised a bit why this airfield was kind of busy. There was an Air France Boeing 747 doing some circuits for training and right before us we had an Airbus 320 landing.
Also at the airfield it self there were some old and abandoned aircraft standing (some even without engines and another with its wheels packed)


After landing at Chateauroux we looked at the weather. The chance of rain and thunder up north (around Paris) decided us to stay. We were also a bit tired after being in the air for more than 5 hours today.