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As mentioned in my last post we were on holiday in the south of France the last three weeks, during this time we stayed at my parents-in-law who live in Bardejean a small village approximately 40km north of Beziers. Besides the normal holiday occupations like sun, sea and pool my wish was to also enjoy the sky’s above Bardejean and the surrounding mountains. During my earlier visits I already found two airfields in the vicinity but I was never successful in booking a flight because of the big language barrier. My French is as bad as the average Frenchman’s English. 
Because of this language barrier it looked like this holiday would also end flightless, this changed fortunately after I found an email address on the also French website of the ‘Aero Club de Beziers’. The normal contact form on the website did not work but in a desperate attempt I did send an email to the webmaster address of the site.
I was lucky because less than an hour later I received a super friendly reply (in English) from webmaster / club member Sébastien. Because of this friendly reply in English this article is also in English instead of the regular Dutch so he will we able to read it! In his reply he immediately invited me to come to the club that afternoon to arrange a flight, he would also be there to act as a interpreter just in case.  As you can imagine he didn’t have to mention this twice, I hopped in the car and 40mn later I arrived at LFMU.
After a quick tour around the club and hangar by Sébastien and his wife I went back to the clubhouse together with Philippe (I think he was the flight coordinator that day) to book a plane and an English speaking instructor. I could choose from one of the clubs three planes, they had a Cessna 152, a Robin DR400/120 and a Piper PA28/181.
 The three planes of the club I chose the last because I wanted to take the kids along and a 152 would be a ‘little bit’ crowded in that situation and a Robin was something completely different from what I was used to. Of course I also wasn’t checked out on the PA28 but I hoped that this had some similarities with the PA38 on which I did my PPL training.
The appointment was made to fly on Thursday the 24th of July at 10:30 together with instructor Jean-Pierre. I also could take a map of the local airspace so that I was able to prepare for the flight.
Unfortunately I received a call that Thursday when I was already underway to LFMU that the PA28 was U/S, because of this I had to make another appointment. The second try would take place on Saturday the 26th, the day before we had to go back to the Netherlands. Hopefully this second try would succeed!!
Luckily every disadvantage has an advantage and in this case it meant that instead of a flight I could spend a day at the beach in Valras Plage. 
During the remainder of the week I again received a email from Sébastien asking if everything went ok and if he could help me with anything. Really friendly!
When I woke up on Saturday and looked out of the window was wasn’t happy to say the least, rain and some thunderclouds over the mountains. Fortunately the METAR and TAF from LFMU didn’t show these killjoys so we (Me, Thijn and Sterre) went underway. When we arrived at the aero club I found that Sébastien and his wife and kids were also there, he planned a flight in the Robin with some friends. unfortunately Jean-Pierre was still flying, the previous lesson took somewhat more time than planned. (It’s the same at every aero club including mine ) Waiting wasn’t bad though, I had some time to chat with Sébastien and Thijn en Sterre went out with his kids.
When Jean-Pierre arrived Sébastien went to the Robin and I had a quick briefing of the flight, during the briefing we also checked the weather and found out that the sky’s over Bardejean (in the mountains) were still covered with CB’s.  So my planned route went out of the window and we decided to make a flight around the LFMU CTR. This way I would get somewhat acquainted with the local situation what would be handy if I ever wanted to fly here without instructor. The new route would lead us over reporting point AD (Mouth of the river Aude), CG (Capestang), NB (Lieuran les Beziers), PZ (Pezenas) and SE (Cap d’ Agde).
 Visual approach chart for LFMUCreating a flight plan wasn’t necessary at LFMU even though it is controlled airspace so off went to the plane, a beautiful Piper PA28-181 with registration F-GFZV.
 F-GFZV When we settled in the plane I found out that the checklist unfortunately was in French, so Jean-Pierre again had to do some translating.  Jean-Pierre also suggested to do the radio, which is also mainly in French so that I could enjoy the flight and the views. So after a quick run-up check we went airborne from runway 28 and turned heading 217 at 1300ft to reach our first reporting point AD. During this part of the flight we passed Valras Plage where we stayed on the beach and enjoyed ‘Quatorze Juillets’.
 Valras Plage |
 Mouth of the river Aude |
After Valras we turned north west direction CG, during this leg we passed the ‘Chinese lantern’ near Capestang . This is a dry lake which looks beautiful from the sky!!
 The 'Chinese lantern' After CG, NB and PZ followed with spectacular views over the mountains in the east. This differs much from the flat country flights I’m used to. 
 Mountains and the Orb river |
 What a view!! |
 There is enough to see |
 And there also :-) |
At PZ we turned south east towards the (inland) sea at Marseillan and followed the coast until we reached Cap ‘d Agde (SE).
 The inland sea at Marseillan During this part of the flight we had to keep a more than usual lookout for other traffic because along these coasts there are more banner planes than there are fish in the sea below! We safely reached Cap ‘d Agde and the kids made aprox 20 pictures (they made all the pictures during this flight!) of the aqua park which is located in the center! Daddy Daddy we want to go there!!! Unfortunately we have to leave tomorrow guys.
 Cap 'd Agde
 Cap 'd Agde |
 Aqua park |
We passed between Agde and Vias to turn left for direct in long final runway 28 and after 43 minutes we were back at LFMU.
 Final 28 |
 Final 28 |
 Jean Pierre |
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It was a great flight with a nice instructor even though it was also somewhat stressful because of the new situation, new plane type and language problems. But this will of course change when I fly here more often during our stays at Claudine’s parents.
After paying the fee, 145 euro for 43 minutes including instructor (which in my opinion is not expensive for such a plane) and saying goodbye to our host Sébastien we went back home.
If you ever come near Beziers visit the Beziers Aero-club!! Nice people, nice field, nice planes!!!
(More photo's can be found via menu item 'Foto Album' on the left side of this page!)
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