Hi !
I’m Michel Bianco, new on this forum. In fact, I’ve been reading your messages for some time and wish now to introduce myself.
I won’t be the younger, unfortunately. I started flying at age 16, passed CPL and IR after a few years and started to work with small societies. Then Africa, minor airlines and bigger ones.
Retirement has come 2 years ago so that I am now free to fly my Jodel when I want. To tell the truth, the weather and my wife decide. She is also a fanatic and has her say !
We love VFR towards the North of Europe but never reached so far the top of Norway, one of our goals.
Our home base is LFLG, Grenoble le Versoud, French Alps, and we often often fly from there to mountain airfields, with skis during winter.
I am pretty concerned at this time by the regulations we have in France to fly abroad, especially after reading Peter’s story in Avignon. Such a shame !
That’s it for now. Regards,
Michel
Soyez le bienvenu, Michel! And as much to Mrs. Bianco, of course.
What Jodel do you fly? You are rated for IFR – is the plane, too?
Welcome! I am from time to time member at the areoclub, basically when doing mountain flying from Alpe D’huez
Welcome to EuroGA, michelb 
Jan_Olieslagers wrote:
What Jodel do you fly? You are rated for IFR – is the plane, too?
The Jodel is a D140 “Abeille”, very similar to the well known “Mousquetaire” and is NOT IFR ; anyway, I gave up my IR ratings when retiring. Back to Basics and Pure VFR ! Even if I can feel a little regret at times, when the French SIV forget to be helpful or inside some confused areas. But we manage to live with that !
Michel
Well, we all know that flying VFR is much MUCH more difficult than flying IFR → definitely for real pilots only 
I enjoy love flying in France and – generally speaking – find the French SIV very helpful… in short, this is a great place to fly!
Anyway, welcome to EuroGA
Another vote for long distance VFR here! (I hope to get my instrument rating over the winter so I may go over to the dark side soon )
Michel, you and your wife sound like a great addition to the forum. Please tell us about your trips! Long distances in a Jodel is real flying!
Thank you all for your welcome !
WhiskeyPapa wrote:
Long distances in a Jodel is real flying!
We’ve little merit in that as our Jodel is not the small (which I love too) but the big one with 4 seats and 180 HP. The only thing is we keep mounted the low pitch prop used for snow landings. In order to be able to land and take off from the short fields in Germany and Denmark (I’m thinking of Baltrum, Nordsee, 360 m). This limits the speed at 105 Kt. The long trips are pretty long… I have thought of variable pitch (should give an extra 15 Kt ?)but not decided so far.
I have to find some time to speak about the French SIV to answer Jojo.
Michel
