Aviation Tour - Maps on www.bankleft.com

One of the elements that Helen and I love about Annecy is the resident "Captens" formation aerobatics squad. Adam and Marianne display over lake Annecy and at air shows across Europe.

Captens - formation aeros, very impressive flying;

Adam is a top bloke with really interesting background and a ton of flying experience. He invited us to dinner and helped with trip planning. We took the Jabiru up to fly some Chandelles. Adam was interested to see how a Jabiru flys and wanted to make sure that I knew how to turn an aeroplane around in a small space which is important for avoiding terrain in tight alpine valleys.

One clear morning, Adam and I took the Captens Cub up over Chamonix to view Mt Blanc and the glaciers.

Aiguille du Midi;

"In winter, I land there with skis on the cub"

The next two photos are of the mighty Mer de Glace glacier at the north east foot of the Mt Blanc peak. The largest glacier in France, it is several hundred meters deep and moving down the valley at one centimetre an hour. Adam tells me that it is melting at a rate that reduces its depth several feet a year.

This (below) is final approach to the altiport of St Roche, above Sallanche on a high south facing ridge looking out to Mt Blanc and over Megave. Obviously (note granite), there is zero chance of going around are here if you screw up your approach. At about this point shown below, you are fully committed to landing, one way or the other. For this reason there is a special rating required for operation from altiports. The skills required to land at this kind of destination are a large step up from those required to land on long flat low level runways so achieving the altiport rating would be excellent training.