Jesse joined the test flying sessions of the LeDash project in France for a couple of days. The project is based in Bordeaux, and test flying was done at the small Saucats airfield just south of Bordeaux.

The south of France makes you think of warm, sunny days, beach fun, and tasty French dinners with copious amounts of wine. It was not so. The weather was unusally wet, a low pressure area nearby was rotating while being almost stationary in position. The first few mornings were completely rained out. It is a strange experience to be in a marquee on a desolated, dark airfield, standing next to a HPA cockpit and wing sections, with the deafening noise of another huge rain shower pelting down on the marquee. The rain would not let up, even though the radar forecast had given us some hope. No flights. But we made many jokes and had fun driving down to the hardware store or other stores to get everything ready for the good weather days.

On the third morning, the weather was perfect! A team of French students had joined the early morning session to help with ground handling. We assembled the HPA next to the marquee, and then walked it to the start of the runway. Lewis claimed first flight ops, and made three short flights. His third flight landed next to the runway, into the grass. That would normally not be a big deal, but we found the ground to be incredibly soggy from all the rain. The HPA stopped immediately and the propeller tips hit the ground. A broken prop blade was the result. It took one and a half days to fix that, which is very fast. But by then Jesse had to return home, without flying LeDash. However some French team members did fly LeDash a few days later, so the prop repairs held fine!

Here is an overview of the event with photos in random order!