Lapalisse 2006

Text: Christian Müssemeyer
Images : Henk Dumont, Christian Müssemeyer, Uwe Wirtz

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In the weekend of 9 and 10 September 2006 the Club Fournier International (CFI) had invited us to their 19th meeting in Lapalisse. Hans and Uwe Wirtz with a Katana (D-EZIC), Miguel Rubia and Christian Müssemeyer in a Grob 109b (D-KEOI), both teams form Aeroclub 77 were joined by Henk and Elly Dumont in a Taifun (D-KFDI) from ETNG. This is the story as told by Christian Müssemeyer:

We met on Friday September 8th at 13.00 at Mönchengladbach airport. Both aircraft had been refuelled one day before and I had filed a common flight plan in the morning.

Henk and Elly withn their Taifun D-KFDI arrived swiftly from Geilenkirchen and we executed a formation take-off at 13.45. I, Christian did all the R/T work, the others only had to follow. This way we were all able to depart one after the other without asking individual permission for take-off, thus reducing radio communications. Our route took us from Mönchengladbach towards Aachen, we crossed the German-Belgian border and circumnavigated Spa because of the parachute activity. We crossed the High Fens into the Ardennes, a beautiful landscape of moors, acres, hills, little rivers and many old castles. We passed the Belgian glider centre of Saint-Hubert and crossed the border into France near Montmedy.

Near the Belgian/French border.

We left Brussels-information (126,0) and switched to Paris-information, heading from VOR Montmedy to Troyes. After the Ardennes the landscape became as flat as a TFT TV-set, only huge acres, many farms, very little forest and only sporadic villages. In the distance we spotted the river Marne, crossed it and landed in Troyes after two hours of flying. We only wanted to refuel and get some coffee but managed neither. The fuel station was broken and the restaurant closed. Fortunately Hans Wirtz had baked a cake and was able to feed us. Moreover, all of us had enough fuel to continue to Lapalisse, though a little good luck with the fuel was needed by the D-KEOI.

Troyes airport, no fuel, restaurant closed, but, we had coffee and cake from Hans Wirtz.

We took off and headed straight south to Lapalisse. The landscape, flat thus far, changed and became green and hilly in the Auvergne district. Only a few acres, only little forests, little fields, many white cows (the Charolais), a few small villages and, of course, many idyllic castles. After one and a quarter hour we reached Lapalisse and contacted them by radio. This was very easy, nobody answered. No problems, everybody landed safely one after the other on runway 05. No Air Traffic Control, nobody to tell you what to do, just great! This turns out to be the right way, all over the world, except for Germany where an airfield must be opened and an air traffic controller has to tell you which runway to land on.

We had counted on having dinner in the sky-diver's restaurant. Unfortunately, this was not possible as the complete sky-dive part had been rented out to the military we couldn’t eat nor sleep there. This proved to be the wrong information as we only discovered later.

After erecting our tents we had a look at the new clubhome and the new workshop of the Lapalisse Aeroclub. Eric des Gayetes and Josette, who waited for our arrival, mentioned to go eat in downtown Lapalisse. They organised three cars and we headed for a restaurant in an old watermill, next to a river, very cosy, like a romantic movie.

As ordinary tourists we would have never found this wonderful restaurant. From the outside the high walls were covered with wine-leaves, the inside was restored perfectly and had been decorated very tastefully. We enjoyed a warm welcome and had an aperitif outside before ordering the food. There were only 10 of us, which made things quite easy and we enjoyed a very good dinner in this fashionable restaurant. Local specialities were served, like calf-head, duck, guineafowl and fish all completed by good wines from the region. This was one of my best dinners ever, eating in France is a unique experience, it's worthwile a flight for itself.

To get into Eric's car for the return was a real struggle. The car is a French make amphibious vehicle with a removable roof but without any door for the rear-seat passengers. I had to crawl in between the roof and the chassis over the front seats. After several attempts I finally succeeded, much to Henk's joy, who felt sorry he hadn’t brought his camera with him. Eric took us back and we had a good night's sleep in our tents at the airport.

The next morning we had a complimentary breakfast from Lapalisse Aeroclub. After this we decided to fly around the Clermont-Ferrand CTR. We got up to 8500 feet to cross the extinguished volcanoes of the Auvergne region, every time a beautiful scenery. Since Miguel R ubia hadn't seen this before, to him this flight was a very special one. We passed Clermont-Ferrand via the west heading for Issoire. As we approached Issoire we heard the other CFI participants on the radio and decided to head back through the Clermont-Ferrand CTR. No problem to get permission for this, so we headed directly to Lapalisse where we landed at 12:30.

Lapalisse Aeroclub had arranged lunch as well. I met Louis Gillot again, the first time was in the Germany flight in 2000. He had arrived with a Ximango from Beaune where he owns a holiday home. Since we had planned to visit Beaune the next day he immediately offered to pick us up at the airport and drive us into town. Of course we used this opportunity the next day.

After lunch a coach already was waiting for us, it took us on a tour through the Auvergne region with sight-seeing of two churches and one castle. The first church was the Chatel-Montagne, a roman one build around 1200 AD. To get more on this one visit www.chatel-montagne.com. Inside the church there was a possibility to confess for those who wanted to. One of the CFI-members was hiding in the confession chair and waited for someone to confess. Fortunately Elli spotted the flying logo on his T-shirt.

From this we went to another church in Abbonnes and then for a visit to the Chateau Busset. This is a castle which belonged to the viscount of Tourzel Baron of Alegrè. His great-grand child Margierite married Pierre de Bourbon in 1498, who was a butler for Louis XII, a forefather of Henk Dumont. The family Bourbon/Busset had great influence on French history for hundreds of years, the castle was in their possession for some 500 years.

The castle is a architectural masterpiece, connecting the Middle-ages with the Renaissance. It is one of the most important castles in the Auvergne. Amongst others, Henri (Henk) IV, future king of France, lived here. The castle is partly a hotel nowadays. More information can be found on www.busset.com.

After a guided tour inside of the castle we went to a church in Verseilles but only looked at it from the outside. We enjoyed a great view over the surrounding area, the view over the valley and then headed back to Lapalisse.

Again some aperitifs before dinner, now outside of the Lapalisse Aeroclub Home, accompanied by some speeches. We remembered the late president of the Aeroclub, Jean-Paul Citerne, who organised the first CFI meeting 18 years ago and had passed away in the summer of 2006. His successor, Michel Leblanc, mentioned that the CFI is an international community, the F also represents the word Friendship for all pilots from all countries. This was endorsed by all the participants from France, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Spain who collectively already conducted numerous wonderful flights.

After the speeches dinner with 60 people, most of them French, at the new club home. Rene Fournier, the constructor and designer of the Fournier planes was present, with him was Guy Biard, often telling his famous jokes.

The next morning we flew from Lapalisse to Beaune and landed after half an hour's flight. We were welcomed by Louis Gillot who brought us to the beautiful city centre. Beaune is a beautiful old, and historic city and in the centre you will find the famous hotel Dieu. This hotel started off as the seat of the Counts, after that it turned into a hospital and now it's a museum. The city centre itself is blocked for cars, you can walk the streets without being afraid of your life. After three hours of sight-seeing we returned to the airport, filed our plan and started our flight home to Germany.

No controller of BFL at Beaune, still we managed to take-off. We activated our flight-plan with Reims-info and headed directly North, passing Nuits Saint Georges. 6 Years ago Uwe and I picked up Patrick Faucheron and my wife Ingrid when Patrick's his engine had died on him. We crossed over the Plateau d’Langres, an area with plenty of fields and forests. To our left we spotted the Lac du Chanctecoq, a big lake. We requested to cross the Restricted area of Saint-Dizier, got permission and headed via the Foret d’Argonne to the VOR MMD. Shortly afterwards we crossed the French/Belgian border at Montmedy and headed via the Ardennes towards Spa and then to Aachen.
After crossing the Belgina/German border I cancelled the flight plan with Langen info because we didn’t need it any longer inside of Germany territory. This enabled Henk and his fast Taifun to go directly to Geilenkirchen, we landed 15 minutes later in Mönchengladbach, just 5 minutes after Hans and Uwe Wirtz with the Katana.

Again a beautiful trip to Lapalisse; I just call this one airworthy. These sort of flights make life in Mönchengladbach's Aeroclub 77 worthwhile. It took us only 2 hours 40 minutes from Beaune to get home, by car it would have taken us almost a full day. Many new impressions and already plans for future trips have been gathered. It is fun to fly with more airplanes, you can share the workload and it relieves stress. Also it is very good to share all these airworthy memories.

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