Montargil (Morargil)   LPMO

Date of Visit = July 1998

Pilot: = Chris Belton

e-mail = chris@yarboo.freeserve.co.uk

Field Report = Minor field listed in the Bottlang Airfield Manual. There's another strip nearby called simply 'Montargil'(not listed), but when we asked Lisbon Information to help us find Montargil, they sent us to the right one. It's not that easy to find, a sand strip in a desert of pine trees. I don't know how we missed the reservoir, but even that seemed to blend in with the landscape.

Depending on how you look at it, this is either a rural idyll or a just somewhere to land on your way to the German owner's hotel, with riding school, on the banks of the beautiful reservoir, from which he flies a kit-fox float-plane. We turned up on spec, but he still drove out to meet us. We chose to camp, so he left the toilet open and gave us a bottle of drinking water, since that in the loo was off the asbestos roof. We camped next to the runway among the cork oaks and French lavender. It was heaven. We hitched a ride in a beaten-up old car to the nearest roadside restaurant to get some food and more water. At seven in the morning we were awoken in our tents by what sounded like an ice-cream van coming down the runway. Ever hopeful, we staggered out, bleary-eyed, only to be confronted by a bunch of bewildered sheep, complete with shepherd. The owner has the shepherd take the sheep down the runway from time to time to save him mowing it.

The owner came and fetched us and took us back to his house to do the flight planning.He has a chart showing all the minor airfields, but I'm not sure where you can buy them. He couldn't have been more helpful, even though we didn't stay in the hotel. People fly out from Lisbon to the hotel for weekends. It's really nice, and I don't think it's that expensive.

Photos: John Hardy