Total distance today 441 miles

Route: South from Roman down the valley, then over the French Alps to Fayance in Southern France (approx. 30 miles North of Nice, then down to the coast, skirting Nice and the international airport ythere, out to sea several miles then along the coast past Monaco into Italy.

Today was a really exhillarating day that included us flying over two sections of the Alpsin France, seeing the Mediterranean for the first time, flying over all the luxury yachts moored in Monaco's harbour, and weaving our way over broken hilly country in central Italy through to the vast flat plains, then down south-east towards Forli

Jean, the forthcoming president of the aero club in Roman picked up at 7.30, took us to the airfield and helped us pack the aircraft.
Took a couple of photos of me showing Jean my switch box for my flight guidance system.
Blue sky, but crisp with strong winds again once airporne, heading for a way through the Alps.  We followed a smaller valley left out of the Rhone(?) Valley, then began climbing up to 4,500 feet.  Took a shortcut over a dog's leg in the valley, saving us about 17 miles, but encountering some fascinating turbulent wind as we soared over the peaks some 100 feet below us, then quickly dropped down to calmer air in the valley, keeping to the right to avoid the rotor effect of the wind sweeping across from the mountains on the left of the valley.
We then followed another smaller valley that came to a dead end and once again soared up and over into the next valley, again hitting quite interesting turbulence, but then we were on our way due South.  After refuelling at Fayance, full of gliders and meeting the flying instructor there, we took off at 12.50 again, heading down to the Med.- I was very excited to be flying over the sea- our first big leg successfully completed!

I took a few pictures with my digital camera with Brian at the controls and telling me roughly where to point it- the results should be interesting!
Our radio began playing up, giving us intermittant contact with Genoa tower; to reduce the hasle of trying to be guided by them we headed inland near the western armpit of italy, up over more mountains; very rugged granite outcrops, then south-east to Forli.

Forli initially refused us access to the airfield, as it has grown greatly since Brian's last happy visit there. They relented when they realised we had filed a flight plan with Nice and had been granted clearance, and were getting low on fuel as well.We landed happily behind a Ryan Air 737.On parking Brian went in to sort out our onward flights, and I was left with the microlight parked not too far from the Ryan Air flight now spooling up again, and as he taxied past me I was concerned about the jet wash from his engines, so lowered the wing towards him, then as an afterthought stepped out with my white stick, still clad in my flying suit, holding my helmet etc, and was signalling to him by waving my white stick, indicating the fact that I would be grateful if he didn't blow us away in the process.  Only afterwards did I wonder what the pilot or passengers would have made of a blind man standing alone by his aircraft, shooing them away with his white
stick- mnad dogs and english men, and all that!

Our day ended up with the authorities telling us we should not have landed there, despite our prior flight plan and clearance from Nice, saying we now needed clearance from the Italian Civil Aviation authorities to take off again.  It took us about 3 hours to finally get it pegged down for the night on the grass verge, protected by security staff and security stickers stuck over the cover for added protection!

We had a great pizza after booking into a nearby economical hotel, not knowing if we can take off tomorrow, or if we need to de-rig her and have her towed 50 miles away to the closest microlight airfield!

My final chuckle for the night was finding that the wash basin, bidee and toilet for my room are all in the shower- a novel experience, but quite utilitarian I guess!
Very tired after a long day, but very contented with our distance travelled!

Miles Hilton-Barber
Challenging Barriers
10 Ferrers Crescent
Duffield
Derbyshire
DE56 4DH

Office:  +44 (0)1332 843590
Mobile:  +44 (0)7973 360470

Web – www.mileshilton-barber.com

"Sight without vision is equal to blindness" -Helen Keller