Week-end… now? Well, I’ll let u younger fellows in, once you are a retiree, pensioner, or any other title and for whatever (have to…?) reason stop “working”, life’s getting real hard.
Hard as in no more week-ends, and even worse, forget all about holidays or vacations.
OTOH, light is at the end of the tunnel as this is the last chapter (according to my belief as a non-believer).
Had a sudden urge to go swim naked (yes, interestingly enough I was born like this, and have only changed little since 
) in the sea. I came to realize a while ago that CH has, no matter what, no sea. But geo-located in the heart (?) of Europe, we can straddle our flying mounts and take an easy and short ride to some salty waters, as in northern Germany, Italy, or France.
Long story short, left my homebase for a quick EU entry at Pontarlier LFSP this morning. Followed by another quick (2:25 at extremely reduced power settings), thanks to Milan radar for the FL115 VFR Torino crossing all the way, before landing at LFKO Propriano for the nite.
Passing East of the Big One…
Monte Viso or Monviso (3841m) riding the usual smog haze…
Xsiting Ajaccio LFKJ @4.5 Kft…
And turning finals 09 @LFKO Propriano…
Finally
Alas, whilst enjoying my excellent Pietra beer on the beach later, I became alert to increased helos, boats, and emergency services activity. Wild rumors at first, but latest news (as for ex France 3) reporting that 4 people lost their lives in a SEP crash after take-off whilst I was savoring my beer… RIP guys.
Yes, I didn’t produced a post yet, but it was a friend of mine with his gf and other friends. A dr400 ditched just after TO, 4 pob and no survivor… this is so sad.
It looks like an engine failure just after takeoff but I can’t imagine that a vfr pilot from Cannes – quite trained for this scenario – could be surprised by this.
Nothing on ASN – sure it was a DR400?
edit: not found it because somebody entered DR.400 not DR400 in ASN.
100% sure, I received an email from the club with what we know for now. I’ll do a separate thread to not pollute this one with so much grief.
Brač LDSB again and then ferry to Vis to get last glimpse of summer before autumn comes to Croatian seaside.
Used my fuel bags (€1.99/l) to fill my tanks. Followed another couple of hours final tanning on the beach, it was then time to depart…
After take-off I could not help but first head South for some sightseeing, before setting course the opposite direction to overfly central Corsica and it’s high mountains.
Passing the famous TORTU, Bastia handed me over to Milan as I headed towards TALEP/USANO at FL115. It’s always interesting to fly on FIS (or ACC) borders, and a good thing I called Nice on the secondary for an easy crossing clearance…
Passing West of Monte Viso I started picking up some turbulence due to strong westerlies, so got the O2 out and climbed to FL155.
The White King, and some pointy bits behind…
Finally hit base after a total of slightly > 3 hours, in spite of some headwinds, all flown using efficient Carson Speed settings.
We took our plane back from Straubing to Stuttgart after autopilot repair.
Dan wrote:
all flown using efficient Carson Speed settings.
Great trip and great pics Dan. Could you please explain your methodology for establishing the Carson Speed settings in the RV? I should like to try similar in an RV an other aircraft.
Well… Saturday we watched some EGHI departures from Southampton hospital.
Sunday the well child had a birthday party, so I stayed at home with the ill one. This left enough time to vacuum the plane (a surprising amount of dust and dried grass), then do a quick 1 hour local.
methodology for establishing the Carson Speed
Methodology would be a pretty big word for a mathematical simplification… 1.316 x my (approximate) Vg (85) = 111.86, which I generously round up to 112. One could also add 32% to the same Vg for a result of 112.2…
In practical terms, I use 116 KIAS since on the G5 my Va has the speed bug conveniently sitting there. This usually return about 130 KTAS at 4Kft, and 145 KTAS at a typical 9Kft. My standard cruise RPM is 2‘000, so the MP is around 19, or 18 if loitering and strict on what professor Bernard H. “Bud” Carson designated as the least wasteful way of wasting fuel.
As previously mentioned, these settings return good fuel economy, with around 20.7l/h (5.46 USG), or less if using 18“. All this leads to some interesting talks and in flight comparisons with various Rotax powered airplanes 
