Propulsion in Poitiers and Beaching in Biarritz

Bonjour!

On Sunday, we left Toulouse around 9am to head for Poitiers. On the schedule, it said it would take about 3 hours to get there, but it ended up taking 9 hours total. There was the expected 3 hours, but we weren’t in Poitiers just yet. Instead we took a 3 hour break in Saint Émilion which was the halfway point to Poitiers which was a surprise to everyone, but we ended up having a nice lunch in the quiet wine town on the outskirts of the Bordeaux Region. When we were walking through the town we stumbled upon some kind of processional through the streets toward the main church. All of the people were dressed in red robes, but it didn’t look like a religious ceremony. We’re still not sure what it was for, but it was interesting to randomly find an event like that. We got back on the bus for another three hours to Poitiers. Once there, we were met by one of the program coordinators from ENSMA. She and our group leader got us checked in, and told us we were going to have breakfast in bed all week. I’m guessing they have to do breakfast in bed since there was no room in the hotel large enough for 28 students. I was feeling a little sick with a sore throat, so I decided to get to bed as early as possible.





Monday morning began with breakfast in bed then a bus ride to ENSMA for our second quiz over the aircraft structures material from the week before. The quiz was a bit more challenging than the first one, but it wasn’t horrible. We then went on a tour of the ENSMA building and then over to lunch in the ENSMA cafeteria before coming back for our first class over combustion systems. When class was over, I went back to our hotel to book my rail pass for France and Spain. Since these passes are only meant for residents outside the EU, the pass has to be sent to your home address. I just asked my mom to mail it to my address in Toulouse, and it should be waiting for me when I get back next week.



We took the city buses to ENSMA which is about a half an hour ride. We then had another class over combustion systems. We were supposed to have a tour of the ENSMA wind tunnels and labs; however they were doing testing for a company so our tour got cancelled. So, we just went to lunch and then back to our hotel to wait until it was time to meet for our cultural visit of Poitiers. The visit of the city was not as impressive as some of our other visits, but it was very informational on the church Notre Dame la Grande and Palais de Justice de Poitiers the courthouse of Poitiers. The church had many intricate statues on the façade that had either lost faces or entire heads during religious and political disputes over the centuries. The courthouse was built by a young Queen of France who later became the Queen of England after she and the King of France didn’t produce any sons and divorced. Oddly, she went on to have 6 sons with the King of England. There is also an impressive wall that has a large fireplace with a giant window above it to let in most of the light. From the outside though, the wall appears to be all chimneys and very little window. Afterwards, I went with a few of my friends to find a Chinese buffet that a Canadian woman suggested to us in a shop earlier in the day. It wasn’t great Chinese food, but it was something different than what we had been eating. Plus we found an interesting park with a small zoo.





















Wednesday turned into a long day of classes. We had two three-hour lectures over combustion. Our professor was pretty nice and easy to understand, so that made it go by quicker. I was still quite sick, so I decided to make it an early night. I ended up deciding not to go to class the next day, since I really haven’t had much time to rest in the past few days. I e-mailed my group leader to let her know my condition, and she understood since the most important thing is our health and safety. I stayed in our hotel on Thursday to catch up on sleep and rest. It was nice to recuperate, but it sucked that I had to miss the last day of lecture and the lab in the afternoon since both would be covered on the quiz scheduled for Friday. Luckily, my roommates were nice enough to grab me a copy of the PowerPoint presentation from the lecture and fill me in on the information covered in the lab. I spent the rest of the night studying those notes in order to prepare for the quiz the next morning.

Thankfully, the quiz didn’t start until 11am, so we were able to sleep in a little bit later than normal. I must say that although the quizzes are open notes, that does not make them any easier. I don’t expect to very well on this quiz, but I think it had a lot to do with missing the previous day and being sick. After the quiz we went to lunch and then met back at the school to walk over to Futuroscope. Futuroscope is basically a theme park somewhat similar to Epcot in Disney World. I guess it’s also the second biggest theme park next to Disneyland Paris. There are a lot of 3-D rides and other attractions based on technology. We went on to some of the 3-D and 4-D (water and air make up the last dimension) shows which were pretty fun, but the best ride was an unexpected one. It’s called something like “Dancing with Robots,” so I was expecting to watch small robots that were programmed to move with the music. It actually turned out to be large robotic arms with rollercoaster seats attached at the end. There were three different levels you and your partner could choose from which ranged from easy to difficult. The difficult level was what I went for which mainly meant that I would be getting tossed all over the place while the robot was dancing. Here’s a video of the dancing robots before we went on.



We actually got the song “I Love Rock ’n’ Roll” since they rotate through 4 different songs. After another 4-D show, we headed to the bus stop to head back to our hotel before the buses stopped running.







On Saturday, we had to get up early to pack and leave for the train station. Our next program stop was in Biarritz in the Basque Country on the Atlantic Ocean close to Spain. We were almost late for the high speed train, but luckily we all made it on-board. It was actually my first train that I had been on that wasn’t a steam engine. We went through about 3 stations where we had to stop for a few minutes. We didn’t have to switch trains until Bordeaux. Sadly, while getting off at the station, we ended up leaving two students on the train. They had put their luggage on the opposite side of the train, and by the time they go to it, the train was rolling out of the station. Our group leader and ENSMA leader quickly called one of the ISAE leaders who was driving to Biarritz. He was able to call people to let the train workers know that there were two students still on-board. The train workers found the two students, and made sure they got off at the next station so that the ISAE leader could drive to pick them up. In the end they ended up getting to Biarritz before us. We boarded our second train to take us to Biarritz which was still about 2 hours away. We were met at the train station by one of the ENAC professors and a former GEA Program group leader from U of M. Once we were at the hotel, I realized that I had balcony and for some reason the French do not use shower curtains. Anyways, we were in one of the best beach cities in Europe, so I had to go check it out and maybe get some sun in the process. There are several sandy beaches to choose from, so we checked out the ones closest to our hotel before settling in on one of the bigger ones by the casino. I must say I’m still experiencing a few culture shocks such as topless women and crazy bachelor parties. There was a guy in a full snow skiing outfit trying to ski along the beach while his friends cheered him on when another bachelor party showed up with the groom dressed as Superman. Superman ended up helping the skier across the beach. The sun was going down, so we went to go find a sandwich at a nearby shop before heading back to the hotel.















Tomorrow there’s going to be a trip the port city of St. Jean in the Basque Country followed by two technical visits on Monday to Messier-Dowty and Turbomeca. We will then head back to Toulouse for our last few days of class. I’ll post again around the 4th of July to let you know about what I did to celebrate it in a foreign country.

Gary

Marseille, Eurocopter, and Aircraft Structures

Bonjour!



Well I got up pretty early on Sunday to go on a wine tour of the Aix en Provence Region. I knew nothing about wine before going, but I figured it would be a nice way to see some of the French countryside around Marseille. The guide was extremely nice; she just started running these private tours a year ago after she had worked for a company as a public relations worker who would take visiting business clients on tours of the vineyards. It’s a very small and personal business that is limited to six people a tour mainly because her van only fits 6 passengers. She picked the five of us up at our hotel and took us to 3 different vineyards. The first one was about an hour away so some of us fell asleep in the car. Chateau La Dorgonne was one of the smaller vineyards that only distributed local region. I learned that there are not only white and red wines but also rosé wines, and the differences depend on the type of grapes used and how long they are exposed to their skins after being picked. We then went on a short tour of the Aix en Provence city center. We ended up having lunch in the city with our guide. I was quite surprised when after we sat down our guide took out a bag and started rolling a cigarette. Smoking in France is quite different than in the US. We’ve talked with some of the French students back at SUPAERO about it, and apparently they get all the same lectures growing up about how smoking is bad for you, but for some reason there remains a high percentage of the population that still smokes. And this was the first time I had seen anyone roll their own cigarette. Anyways, we were deciding on what to order and someone suggested ordering a plate of escargot for us to try. After the other convinced me I tried one. It was exactly as our guide said it would be which was a garlic taste since they put so much garlic in when they cook it that you don’t even taste the snail. Our guide ordered one of the other French foods Americans hear about, steak tartare. We explained that a dish like that would be hard to find in the US since we have many rules about the consumption of raw meat. After lunch we headed out to our second vineyard, Chateau Vignelaure, which distributed all over the globe. We saw the fermentation tanks then went about 20 meters underground to see where they store all of the bottled wine from past years. Our guide then showed us a huge room where there let the wine sit in barrels for about 6 months then bottle it. The owners had a tunnel from this area to the original fermentation area. Tunnel was filled with artwork given to them by various artists they have become friends with over the years. Overall, the entire landscape was quite breathtaking. It was then onto the final vineyard that is quite young, but has already won many awards. I ended up buying two bottles of rosé wine from them to take back home as gifts for my sister as a wedding present. We then headed for our hotel after getting some last photos of Chateau Paradis. Once we were back in Marseille, we went out to a restaurant our professors had suggested the night before. It was quite amazing to say the least. It may have been a little expensive, but it was worth it. I even tried canard (duck).








After eating breakfast, our group packed up our stuff to put on the bus. We had a few hours free before we had to meet up for lunch in downtown Marseille. Around two o’clock, we headed out to Aix en Provence to spend the night there so we could make it to Eurocopter Tuesday morning. I was still quite tired and had already seen the sites of downtown Aix en Provence so I went to bed early that night.

Our technical visit of Eurocopter was Tuesday morning. Again we weren’t allowed to take pictures, but that’s a big more understandable than with Airbus since Eurocopter makes a lot of military helicopters. It was pouring rain which a huge rarity in the Southern France Regions, but apparently the GEA Program has brought rain with them during their visits over the past few years. The first stop was for a presentation by the Educational Outreach and Public Relations departments. We were then able to take tours of the production lines for the rotor hub and the final assembly line. The final assembly is composed of about 10 stations with three lines of assembly. Included in these stations are the static testing and ground testing. They are then wheeled outside for water tests and flight tests. We then ate lunch near the facility before heading via bus for Toulouse. We had dinner at the SUPAERO cafeteria and afterward one of my friends was wondering how to access to the gym’s rock wall. We asked a random student who ended up being one of the students that does it regularly. He told us about a small rock wall setup in the basement of our dorm, and we made plans to meet him the next day to try it out.

After a nice weekend by the coast, it was time to head back to classes on Wednesday. For the next few days we had to cover aircraft structures beginning with a two hour lecture followed by French, lunch, and three more hours of lecture. It was kind of a long day, but we were still interested in checking out the rock wall cave in our basement. I’ve been rock climbing before, but that was about 7 years ago. I must say it’s much more difficult than I remember, but it was quite fun just watching all of us get so far then fall flat on our backs. Afterward, we headed up to the foyer to watch the Brazil and North Korea soccer game. If you’ve never watched a soccer game in a foreign county especially a World Cup game, you need to experience it at least once.



For Thursday, we had labs over at the ENSICA campus of ISAE on the other side of Toulouse. We took the bus over in the morning and split up into three groups of about 10. I started with the landing gear lab which consisted of a short background by the professor then half of the group was going to apply the load to the landing gear and the other group was in charge of monitoring the results on the computer and printing them out. Our professor then walked up through how to calculate the theoretical responses to the loads we applied. After comparing these theoretical and actual we were able to determine that our theoretical model was quite accurate to the lab. After lunch at ENSICA, my group rotated to the composite materials lab. This professor gave us a more in depth background to composites, and then we made our own carbon composite plate. It was going to take all night to dry the composite, so we didn’t get to take it home immediately. There was a metro station right next to ENSICA, so we just took the metro back to SUPAERO. That night it started pouring, so we decided to just eat in the Foyer. I must say some of their food is a lot better than the cafeteria’s food.

Friday was another trip to ENSICA for our last lab session. Our half an hour bus ride to campus soon turned into a two hour bus ride in and out of the Toulouse area because our bus driver got lost. It was quite the adventure that made us an hour late, so our professor had to rush through their respective labs. My last lab was the wing rib lab about tension and compression. It was quite similar to the landing gear lab in the setup and analysis. We had lunch at ENSICA and headed back to SUPAERO. Our afternoon lecture was canceled because the professor had an emergency come up. I just spent the time relaxing in my room since I was going to go out later that night to listen to some of my new SUPAERO friends play in a band. It actually turned into quite the French and Spanish experience since they were performing at a bar with a Spanish theme. The band was very good, and the flamingo dancers made me want to go to Spain over my break even more. Around midnight, we were heading back and ran into other people who were just heading out. Since I hadn’t been to a French dance club yet, I decided to join them. It’s very similar to an American club because all of the music is either American or British, but it was fun to just go out and dance.





I slept in quite a bit on Saturday, but sometimes it’s necessary. Earlier in the week I had found out that the Toulouse Pride Festival was on Saturday, so I went to go check that out around 4pm. I’ve never been to a Pride Parade before, but I recommend it. I was very surprised to see the size of it especially on a rainy day. There were hundreds of people around the Capitole and that was where the Parade ended, so there may have been even more along the route. What was even more impressive was the huge presence of LGBTQ Allies. After looking around the area to check out the festivities, I headed back to do my laundry before I had to pack for Poitiers. We’ll be leaving for Poitiers on Sunday morning and spending a week there to study at the ENSMA campus. It’s been a fun week, and I’ll post again sometime next weekend to give updates on Poitiers, Futuroscope, and Biarritz.

Combining the French Life and Studying

It’s the end of my first full week in France, and I’ve already had my first quiz, technical visit, and cultural visit with the GEA program. I’ll have to explain it day by day just too keep everything I did straight.





















Since it was the first Sunday of the month, I guess most public museums are free in France. About 6 of us took advantage of this, as we traveled to downtown Toulouse in search of two different museums. The first one was actually split into three different locations, an old water tower, a hidden room under a road, and a theatre. Each place had different photographic art. The water tower was probably the best simply due to the fact that they had put a thick plexiglass down as the floor of the lower level. They had kept all of the water wheels and pipes intact, so us engineers were more fascinated by the equipment than the photos of people from Africa with exotic pets. Sadly, photos were not allowed, so all I have are the photos of the exterior. The second museum contained modern art. There was an exhibit of a house that rained inside of it. There was also a room with art involving space, but the rest of the museum was a bit too modern if you know what I mean. We then went to take pictures of Le Pont Neuf which is the oldest bridge in Toulouse, but its name means “The New Bridge.” We ended up stumbling upon the same Moroccan festival that I was at a few nights before. From the bridge we were able to see their stunt show on horses. It was getting kind of late since we got a late start, so we went to a restaurant a few of the people in the group were at earlier in the week. It’s called Le Pinocchio. The food was okay, but we at least had a better idea of what we were going to get since they had English menus. I ended up getting a Sicilian Pizza and a Banana Split. I have to say, the Banana Split was probably the best I’ve ever had.



After 5 days in Toulouse, it was time to start classes. Our first unit was over aviation safety and air transport economics which were taught by two instructors at the ENAC campus. The first day we had two 50 minute sessions of aviation safety followed by our French language class and lunch. We ended with two more session on aviation safety. After classes, I went back into Toulouse to the places we were at last Friday to take some better pictures and explore a bit more before heading back to SUPAERO for dinner and bed.



Tuesday morning came a bit too soon again, but it’s not good to skip classes that are packing quite a bit of information into just a few sessions. We started again with two sessions of aviation safety followed by French and lunch then three sessions of air transport economics. I have to say that I found the classes to be interesting if for no other reason that I don’t know of any class at U of M that teaches these topics. We learn a lot about how to make things fly, but there is a lot of logistics that we never learn until we are in industry. This was actually the first day I didn’t go into the city, but there really isn’t much of a reason to go into the city since I’ve already been to the bigger sites in Toulouse.







By Wednesday morning, we had settled into our standard breakfast of yogurt, cereal, and a croissant, then 2 sessions of aviation safety and French. Today, we did have a rushed lunch since we had to be back at SUPAERO to catch the bus to our Airbus visit. I decided to wear my khakis and polo all day, so I didn’t have to rush back as fast as some people. Once we got to Airbus, our program leaders collected our passports so we could get visitor badges. Sadly, we couldn’t take photos inside the buildings, so they confiscated our cameras until the end of the visit. None of us knew why that was necessary since you can find photos and videos of the assembly online. I’ve posted some of those online photos and videos since I wasn’t able to take the photos or videos myself. But anyways, we were first taken to the final assembly line of the A380. All of the parts for the A380 are made in different counties and places in France except for the engine pylons which are made on the North side of Toulouse by a private company that specializes in titanium and hard alloys. In this assembly, they get the fuselage in 3 sections, to finish the wiring and other electronic systems. Then it is moved to another station where the three sections come together before attaching the wings, stabilizer, and tail fin. Once, it is done with that station it is moved to the next hanger for testing of all of the systems. Next, we drove to the other side of the Toulouse airport to see the facility for the A330 and A340 models. In a few years, this will also be the assembly for the A350.

















On Thursday, we finished up our aviation safety unit in the morning. Then we had a break for lunch plus two extra hours. During the break I went back to SUPAERO to buy more dinner tickets and a laundry card. It was a bit more difficult than we thought it would be, but luckily we stopped a SUPAERO student to help us translate to the guy at the front desk. I decided to try to look up some of the train options for my second hour. I still haven’t decided where I want to go during the breaks, but I am kind of leaning toward Barcelona and Madrid over our 5 day break. Anyways, I had to head back at 3pm for our last air transport economics lecture. After classes were done, a few us had dinner and went over to campus to study. Each of us took a section and made a study guide. It took about 5 hours, which may have been too much study or not enough. I guess I’ll find out when I get my grade back.

We had breakfast and headed over to ENAC on Friday for a review session before our quiz. It was optional, but I figured it I didn’t have anything to lose by going. The quiz multiple choice with 25 questions each worth one point. It was also open book and open notes. I have to say there were a few ambiguous questions and potential answers, so it’s hard to gauge how well it went. We then had our French class and lunch. Afterwards, we hopped on the bus to Carcassonne. Carcassonne is basically a medieval city that survived into the modern age. It’s only about an hour drive, and once we arrived, we had a guided tour of the city followed by some free time to explore the city. The original city is fortified by two walls that circle the entire city. Our guide went over many of the reasons why this city was basically impossible to attack. We also went into the basilica and to learn more about the rise and fall of Catharism due to differences with the Catholic Church and inquisitions they used to bring down the Cathars. Since I visited this city a few years ago, I already knew the layout of the city pretty well. It helped knowing all of the better spots to take photos. After a bit of walking around, it was time to go back to Toulouse. I kind of went to sleep right after getting into my room since we had to be up quite early to head to Marseille.





Today we were up at 8am, so we could leave for Marseille which is the 3rd largest city in France. It is a port city on the Mediterranean with quite a bit of history and current progress. I tried to sleep for most of the bus ride, but when I couldn’t sleep I worked on typing up my reports on Airbus and Carcassonne. We arrived at the hotel just a bit after 12pm. The hotel is Cercle de Garnison which is just off the harbor. It’s actually reserved mainly for military personnel, but since our study abroad schools are associated with the military, they were able to set up the reservations. The first thing on my list to do was to find some food, and other felt the same since most of us didn’t have a breakfast. We ended up having about 25 of us at one restaurant which was serving mussels and fries as their plate of the day. Our group leader says mussels and fries is a very famous French dish especially on the coast. I opted to go for a Cesar salad since I’m not a big seafood person. To work off our lunch, we hiked to the Basilica Notre-Dame de la Garde. It’s on the top of one of the mountains around Marseille. It took us about a half an hour to get up there, but I must say the view was worth it. After walking down, five of us went to do more sightseeing in the harbor area. We managed to find a few shops to look around in until it was time for dinner. After having a very good dinner of calamari, we went for a walk to take us to the other side of the harbor. We had to get back to the hotel after a little bit since three of us are taking a wine tasting tour tomorrow, plus I wanted to finish my paper on Airbus with my partner.













We will be in the Marseille area until Tuesday night. During that time, I’ll be going on a wine tasting tour, a trip to the Aix en Provence, and a visit to Eurocopter. After we get back to Toulouse on Tuesday night, we will be back to our school schedule, but this time at the SUPAERO and ENSICA campuses which make up ISAE. This new unit will be covering aircraft structures and some propulsion. I’ll probably post again sometime next weekend, so I can give more information about how the rest of Marseille went as well as the progress of our second unit.

Until next time,

Gary