Sunset flight
We had a nearly perfect weather yesterday, really seemed like summer: clear sky, no wind, and above 25C… it was time to fly. But we decided to wait for the evening, hoping to go see the sunset on the ocean. First it looked like a bad idea, as some clouds showed up, but we stuck with our initial idea and went to the airfield at 7:30PM.
The planned flightpath was a return trip to Mimizan, which is ~90km south of our departure field. We refilled the plane with gasoline, checked charts and weather forecasts… everything looked OK: start the engine ! Backtrack the runway, line up, call on the radio for take-off, and here we are: we’re airborne.
Taking off on runway 13 allowed us to go almost directly on our first turning point, a few miles northeast of Arcachon, then straight to Sanguinet, Biscarosse. A few minutes later, as planned, we discovered Mimizan LFCZ airfield, nested in the middle of the Landes’ forest. But the clock was ticking, and if we wanted to be back in Andernos before the night, we had to speed up a bit. We only performed a touch’n'go then headed back home. Then we understood going so late was a really great idea: we had the sun setting on the ocean during the whole return leg ! And the few clouds we were worried about were just making the scenery even nicer…
To enjoy it completely, we took a different path which took us above the shore, from Mimizan to Biscarosse-Plage, then directly over the Banc D’Arguin, Cap Ferret, and finally across the Bassin d’Arcachon. It was now time to prepare the aircraft for landing: flaps extended, carb’ heater on, and for once useful, landing lights ! We were back on the ground at 9:02PM, for an official sunset time at 9:01PM 
(nothing “illegal” here: day VFR is allowed until 30′ after the sunset).
Open the hangar doors, turn on the lights, push the plane inside, and we’re done. Just one more hour on my logbook, but what a pleasant flight !
Some photos we took:
This is a WPSimpleViewerGallery
By the way… we took around 250 pictures. The best 75 are now online in the Gallery.
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