About 3 months ago, my colleague Asier and I went together with his instructor, Jean Louis, to Corsica for a weekend fly out, an activity of our club the Airbus’ Aviation Society.
The experience was terrific in several ways. I learnt a lot about flying and navigation the days prior to the fly out and during the trip. The views along the way by southern coastal France were superb. We enjoyed good weather despite of what had been announced and even found time to do some tourism and trekking in the island. But let’s go back to the flight.
On the way to Corsica, we made one stop at Cuers to refuel the aircraft and change pilot. Asier would start from Toulouse and I would continue to Corsica. On the way back, Asier would fly over the sea all the way to Alès and I would fly over Millau on the way to Toulouse.
I’ll try to be brief with the explanations and generous with the pictures to give you a flavour of how the French Mediterranean coast looks like. Because of the number of pitures I want to share, I will distribute them in 3 different blog posts, starting with this one dedicated to the first flight.
Flight 1 (Asier at the controls): Toulouse Lasbordes – Carcassone – Narbonne – Sète – Montpellier – Saintes Maries de la Mer – Fos-sur-Mer – Marseille – Cassis – Le Castellet – Toulon – Cuers
I encourage you to take a look at a map of France coast at the same time you are watching the pictures and try to identify the places (you may see the route at the bottom of the post as recorded by my Garmin).
See the life vests (yellow bags) at hand in case of emergency ready at hand. Jean Louis would have his vest always on. In case of emergency he would take the control buying us time to get ours on.
Carcassone from the North.
Narbonne from the North.
Coastline at Cape de Adge.
Peninsula at Étand de Thau.
Seafood plantation at Étand de Thau.
Ville de Sète.
Frontignan.
The touristic village “La grande Motte” built in the ‘60s and ‘70s with its characteristic architecture with forms resembling pyramids.
The intricate Port-Camargue, one of the first “pleasure ports” in Europe, also from the ‘60s.
Closed ponds at the mouth of the Rhone.
Bull fighting arena at Saintes Maries de la Mer.
Sands at Lagunes de Beauduc (with its non-paved driveway).
Lighthouse at Lagunes de Beauduc.
Colourful salt flats at Salins du Giraud.
Ships departing from the industrial hub Fos-sur-Mer.
Marseille and “Les Îles”.
Les Goudes and “Les Îles” (past Marseille).
Natural reservation of the “Île de Riou“.
Ideal and quiet spot at Calanque de Sormiu.
Former F1 “Paul Ricard” racing circuit and aerodrome at Le Castellet.
Military port at Toulon (an aircraft carrier can be seen).
Asier after having flown 2h30′ hours posing side by side our Robin DR-44.
You may check the Garmin records of this first flight by clicking on the link and the route we followed in the picture below:
(to be continued…)
The Blog by Javier 