My plane was not in flying order after the troubles with the propeller bolts, so I drove the +/- 700 kilometres. Arrived Friday around noon, and though the official dates were only Saturday and Sunday I found there were conferences on Friday afternoon too. I tried to attend one of these but found it impossible: the room had the acoustics of a large bathroom, further marred by a primitive sort of PA-equipment; and all kind of people walked around or even sat down nearby while discussing loudly so that it was impossible to follow the presentation on engines and performance, interesting though it began. Sincere apologies, Mr Kieffer, the organisers could have offered you a better platform.
Generally, I am afraid this event is on the decline: the number of stands, the duration, the quality of organisation, all have been going down steadily over the years. For just one example of poor organisation: on Saturday morning nobody could enter the camping, though it had been open the evening before. Some silly misunderstanding about who held which keys, it can happen of course, especially where all are volunteers, but it was so typical. Luckily the victims took it with a smile. This is France, after all.
And few new aircraft, too: most remarkable was a homebrew “L’Agriole” that claimed an empty weight of just 65 kg, though it seats two. Entirely built of carbon tube, powered by a one cylinder two stroke engine.
Another interesting newcomer was at HKW-aero: it claims a payload over 200 kgs, cruise speed of 182 km/h (close on 100 kts), at a fuel burn of 4 litres/hour. http://www.hkw-aero.fr/projet.html
(and it does not figure in the list of participants… http://euroflyin.rsafrance.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=61&Itemid=202 )
Some images of the Agrion are at http://imgur.com/a/VKVPV
and a few more general at http://imgur.com/a/l93j4
Some interesting stuff in the photos. The un modified Globe Swift is a beauty and I see a Bölkow 207 in the background – the Klemm derived Bölkow is a cool plane.
A friend has two highly modified Swifts and another friend has one much like that the photo. It’s amazing how much more performance can be extracted from them through aerodynamic cleanup and an O-360 but it’s hard to improve on the looks of a polished original!
The little Honda CT70 was the first motorcycle I rode, at age 9 or so 
The HKW claims 4.2 litres per 100km as I make it. At 182kph it’ll be a bit more than 4 litres/hour, but still nice to see people aiming for efficiency.
I have heard on other forums that this event was not up to previous ones. It’s a shame as I was thinking of going to visit next year but maybe I won’t now.
I have heard on other forums
May one ask where? I am curious to compare other comments to my own.
maybe I won’t now.
That is probably too much to say – there were still a few interesting things to see, and people to meet. And I do think the organisers must realise there is room for improvement. I for one will not exclude going again, who knows I even manage to finally fly there!
I visit a forum that is sparsely populated by the very few people around the world who own an aircraft that is the same as mine.
Three of these aircraft visited which amounts to about 3% of the flying examples.
Another interesting newcomer was at HKW-aero: it claims a payload over 200 kgs, cruise speed of 182 km/h (close on 100 kts), at a fuel burn of 4 litres/hour.
Interesting. I like that it is built of aluminium. I’m not sure I like the engine though, but there are other alternatives. The climb rate with 40hp at MTOW must be terrible.
Edit: Looked at more of those foils. It is a mixed construction of carbon and aluminium, worst thing imaginable regarding galvanic corrosion. It uses pop rivets (faster than bucked, but heavier, corrosion problems, more expensive and look nowhere as good as flush bucked rivets). The construction needs jigs for everything, which shouldn’t be necessary. A plan table is really all that is needed when parts are CNC cut and pre-drilled.
Besides. All modern (aerodynamic) ultralights cruises at 90-100 knots using 8-9 lph with a Rotax 912. that is 40-50 hp. 80-100 hp is there to get off the ground from a typical ultralight strip of 2-400 m.
