Big Weekend - Part 2

Aérodrome - Loudun

Got back from the Cravant party and found a message from our friends Chris and Linda (C&L) who were due to fly today. All was still ok, but they'd changed the refuelling stop to Le Touquet rather than Abbeville. ETA was still around 5pm and they were still landing at Loudun. There are different levels of aérodrome from small-scale such as Abbeville, (in the Somme département) and Loudun (Vienne), to the full-throttle (sorry) such as Le Touquet with air control and strict regulations.

Had various things remarkably uninteresting to do during the day other than we needed to do them, while we waited for a call from C&L at Le Touquet with their updated ETA to Loudun. Call came - about  a 3 hour flight, meaning around 4pm rather than 5pm.Great.

Loudun is about 30 k from us which by car is only about 35 minutes. It's not a place we know at all really, other than we visited a deconsecrated church a couple of times for a friend's exhibition. What history we've found on the internet, suggests that a significant number of Arcadians, one of the early founding peoples of New France in Canada, came from the region. That's it apparently for historical importance, until the arrival of Chris and Linda at the Loudun aérodrome, yesterday afternoon.

We got over there a little before 4pm.  It's the home of a small flying club. They have four planes. One of which landed shortly after we arrived.Thinking it might be C&L we walked tentatively towards the barrier as the plane taxied towards the fuel pump. But then four people got out, one of whom was wearing stilettos and sporting a designer bag, and teetered about on the plane wing, at which point the welcoming hand-waves shot back into our pockets and we wandered back to the tables outside the club-house.  We'd met the duty person and explained what we were doing. Lovely lady - had a good chat with her. After which it was just a question of sitting and waiting.  My Radar tendencies (M.A.S.H.) proved disappointing having got over-excited at i) a tractor ii) a second tractor. Beautiful day, not too much wind. Then Madame came out of the club-house to say she thought our friends were due to arrive, but it could also be a French plane. So we watched and waited as it came overhead, circled and then seemed to head off. 

Then wowee. They'd landed. First time they'd flown across the channel on a solo flight. Tiring journey, but an interesting one. Weather had been good, slightly bumpy in parts. Le Touquet was a bit of a challenge with it's strict regulations, followed by all the military air space that is in operation in our region. So they had to weave their way through 'free' corridors to get to Loudun.

Loudon air-club were extremely helpful. Two night accommodation for the plane + security. No charge. When Linda asked what the landing fee was, the President of the air-club said,  "a smile". Which was so sweet!  The plane was moved to a different area on the site and secured down; our phone number was left as point of contact - then back to Cravant, via a slightly scenic route.  Quick turn-round before heading back into Chinon for a superb dinner at Les Années 30, spectacular fireworks, some dancing in the main square and a midnight walk round the town before driving back home. Sweet dreams.