Rock & Roll!

Well finally after a painfully slow and troublesome start we have had our first actual production survey flight! Surveying in France is not like going up to the Northern Canada Bush and doing a survey job like I have been used to in the 206. The airspace here is incredibly dense.

Surveying in the north involves little more than setting up at the nearest airport, and going flying. Up there you can fly at 200 ft all day every day and no one cares because its just wilderness. Here in France its a little different. We're buzzing towns at 200 ft agl, blowing right over top of local airports, criss-crossing military airspace and even working around a nuclear generating plant. Part of the reason of the slow start was getting all the government permits to do this. Even though we're allowed to fly over top of small towns, we have to notify a half dozen different agencies and organizations every time we fly. That's the boring part.

The exciting part is the actual flying. To be a honest I was wondering if I would be of much use as co-pilot/operator, considering this kind of flying is usually done single-pilot with an unlicensed operator. But after today's flight I felt like I contributed to the flight considerably as co-pilot and not just "operator". The navigating is intense! The entire 4 hr flight I served as navigator while the Captain flew the lines. In Canada if we're surveying and we see a road, that's been an eventful flight. Here, there's so many things to look out for; airports, airplanes, power lines, towers and restricted airspace that we were both kept on our toes. I never thought that anyone would let us fly over built up areas at 200 ft agl, everything about flight training says its not allowed, but surprisingly our permits basically (with lots of fine print) allow us to fly over everything but the larger towns. The flight planning and flying is quite complex, and its going to be a great learning experience. I would never know how to even attempt a job like this on my own, so its fascinating to be involved in the planning and thought process of a pilot who has done this before.

There's lots to see scenery wise as well. We flew past about a half dozen great big French castles, and some cathedrals, and just in general French countryside is very beautiful.

Usually I don't bother to share photos on this blog, but these ones are worth sharing for sure.

Its incredibly warm here though, over 30 degrees C, and one thing I forgot about Pipers is that there isn't nearly enough ventilation for them. Cessnas have those big ol' overhead vents that you can direct at your face, but the Navajo only has little tiny ones like you'd find on an airliner, and then the side storm windows, which give good airflow but are really noisy to open. We're thinking we might buy some flex hose to stick one end out the window into the airflow and the other end down our shirts to keep us cool. I'll report on how that works out if/when it happens.