Had a go at Fédération RSA homebuilt fly-in at Brienne-le-Chateau aka LFFN.
Despite some menacing weather in northern France, a good turn out with about 200 aircraft. As @eurogaguest1980 commented, French homebuilt fly-ins always offer some interesting, if not weird, flying contraptions machines.
Having been a regular visitor to all of these European events for many a year, it is always a renewed pleasure meeting old friends, and making new ones.
A nicely packed flight line
A couple of them interesting ones, Luciole, which is becoming very popular, a Pou-du-Ciel, which has become very unpopular, and a unknown amphibian, the tubing being made out of CFK (carbon) with carbon tow holding the joints…
Just to shed any doubt, even pesky RV pilots with nonchalant flaps (the RVs…) seem to be able to enjoy local hospitality.
There are 2 RV-8 (you know, those pseudo P-51s 
) pilots in this group… do recognize which ones out of this seemingly happy bunch?
Nothing special this weekend. Yesterday, in the morning, checked out a fresh PPL pilot in the club‘s Traveller.
No more flying after that. Weather turned windy, cloudy and cold anyway.
Not quite this weekend, but Friday… finally plucked up the courage to face up to the complications of IFR flight out of Cannes and do my first solo IFR flight in France (or indeed anywhere outside the US).
Pictures below… the salt flats of the Camargue, and L’Etang de Thau between Beziers and Montpelier on the Mediterranean coast. The hill mid-picture on the right is the town of Sète, famous among other things as the birthplace of Georges Brassens.
Wonderful gathering @Dan , I like your scene, to the point that I offered that Mustang pilot on the right to exchange his plane for mine when you visited Menorca. I could be wrong but his response sounded un-Texan diplomatic to me: “I may need some time to think about that”. 
I was fighting against the ice on my way from EGGP to EDDN.
aart wrote:
Wonderful gathering @Dan , I like your scene, to the point that I offered that Mustang pilot on the right to exchange his plane for mine when you visited Menorca. I could be wrong but his response sounded un-Texan diplomatic to me: “I may need some time to think about that”.
I’ve heard he’s still thinking about it!
This was a nice event, and very interesting airfield. As Dan wrote, lots of very unique aircraft.
@Dan, thanks for the photos of the Luciole and the HM-380… it’s really great to see them in use. The little Briggs and Stratton engine in the Luciole looks like a Guzzi engine I would love to go an event like that in France to see the locally designed homebuilts.
Closer to home, I just did a 40 minute each way out-and-back, using Foreflight to pick the best combination of most comfortable local summer temperature (33 C) and cheapest 100LL as my destination… It didn’t hurt that the restaurant there has excellent salmon tacos.
I couldn’t talk myself into a longer desert flight to get the cheapest fuel (50 cents per gallon cheaper, but 44C OAT) but (getting to the point) so far this summer my fan cooled iPad Mini mount is working well. No overheating issues on the ground, using the mount’s battery power temporarily at startup after I install the tablet but before I turn on the master switch and supply ship’s power.
Just a 1 hour local yesterday to play with the ADF, before flying some approaches today with an instructor. No photos unfortunately.
No flying for me, I spent the weekend under the panel of my RV dealing with some serious spaghetti. It’s now improved to somewhere close to tagliatelle. There were some real egregious wiring crimes committed by a previous owner, which is a shame as the original wiring at build was top notch. I’ve just fitted fuel flow transducer and next job is to put in an engine monitor.
The rest of the plane is apart for inspection now and hopefully will be back together at the end of this week.
