Base “ULM de La Côte de Jade” at Saint Brévin les Pins (44).
Situated between St Brévin and Paimboeuf at the mouth of the Loire, this ultralight base was the place where I was introduced to ultralight piloting. With Laurent (still) as instructor, the learning experience was rich and enjoyable. Laurent is an aeronautical engineer, pilot and instructor. Laurent runs in the family, as he’s also a cousin by marriage. Apart from helicopters, he pilots just about everything that flies! He’s a bit like the Thomas Pesquet of the family: hyper-professional, always with an answer to every question (especially mine, of which there are many). Well-versed in mechanics, weather, engineering, navigation, radio, aerodynamics, mathematics, physics… He’s always very calm in any situation, methodical and a real pedagogue who always knows how to find the simple words to explain things that are sometimes very complex. I’ve been so lucky! Many thanks to you.
After a few simulator sessions at Alsim, my theoretical license and a dozen hours of flight on this strange machine, the Hanuman, made of tube and canvas, with non-existent comfort, but with the advantage of being reliable and inexpensive to buy, it was my first solo release. I’ll never forget that morning. We were landing for the tenth time on the Saint Brévin runway. Suddenly, Laurent got out of the machine and said to me:“Your turn! You take off again, fly around to La Plaine sur Mer and come back to land“. He gets out, closes the door and runs off. Now I’m alone at the controls. After 1 minute (barely) of hesitation, I taxi to the runway threshold, check-list, radio and get back on the throttle. Fifteen minutes later, I land alone and on the first try. It was a strange feeling to be alone for the first time, but a memorable flight that all pilots remember for the rest of their lives.
The saying goes: If you land in Saint Brévin, you can land anywhere! (runway 27 isn’t a billiard table, and it’s only 200m long).
One thing I loved about the very short runway at La Côte de Jade base: when we were coming up a bit fast on final on 27, in order to lose altitude and speed quickly, I used the aircraft’s aerodynamics as an airbrake: throttle at minimum, flaps down, stick to the left, rudder to the right, resulting in a rapid crab-like descent, using the side of the Hanuman with its very square fuselage as an aerodynamic brake. It’s very effective, and saves you having to go round the runway again. At the last moment, you put the machine back on axis and land right on the threshold. It gives you a really great feeling and total control of the machine. Our other “game” was to climb quite high and two or three kilometers from the base. Laurent would then cut the engine. The exercise was to reach the runway and glide down, trying to optimize the descent as much as possible. Too low or too high and you’d miss. In this case, we restarted the engine (Rotax 912) and took another lap around the runway. Good training in case of a real engine failure during a flight. Without the engine, it was so quiet, just the sound of the air on the structure… the best!
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Some photos of the Hanuman on the St Brévin site
