Former 2021 ESA Astronaut training program applicant
We had been snorkeling with our kids quite often but never took them scuba diving.
Today was the first time we took them scuba diving with us.
There was a lot of excitement and curiosity. All 3 managed to dive regardless of their initial apprehension. It was a true family moment. They are now looking forward to the next occasion!
I learned to sail on my father’s old 470 class on Annecy Lake. Even though we could not sail as much as we wanted to in the recent years, this year was the first time we took the kids with us for a week-long sailing cruise.
We recently enjoyed memorable vacations sailing in Greece on a rented Lagoon 420.
Sailing from one island haven to the next, our kids discovered how to hoist, luff, change tack, haul in, make fast… and many other things one can only learn on a boat.
This morning, we visited Paris’ Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie. This was the 3rd science museum we visited after Lisbon and Montreal. A lot of new discoveries and surprises, including Solar Impulse 1 hanging from the ceiling!
Straight out of Cap Canaveral’s JFK Space Center and Dulles’ National Air and Space Museum, we visited today New York’s Intrepid Sea-Air-Space museum.
We had unique sneak peek at NASA’s Entreprise (the prototype orbiter) as well as British Airways’ Concord.
Our youngest son was equally impressed by our visit to neighboring Growler submarine, one of the first last-resort nuclear-missile submarines.
I first visited Cap Canaveral during summer 1986, a few months after Challenger’s dramatic accident. After another trip in 2007 with our oldest daughter (she was only 3 month old I believe), Marie and I took the entire family to JFK Space Center in summer 2018.
The poor ones have had to endure the combo “Cap Canaveral + Dulles National Air and Space Museum + Intrepid Air & Space Museum New York” in a week!
After discovering the great adventure of the men and women behind space exploration, our second daughter took an oath to herself to also become an astronaut
Marie had the greatest idea of all!
For my 39th birthday she organized a training flight with Breitling Jet Team’s L39s.
This was my first time piloting a jet… and it was quite fun! Loops, rolls, spins… and even an Immelmann. Maneuvering between 220 and 300 knots, we experienced up to 6 G during loops. Landing it at 120 knots with Captain Jacques Bothelin, knowing that 6 other planes were following at 15 seconds intervals, was quite unique.
That will probably remain my best birthday present for quite some time.
Marie took the kids out of school this Friday to bring them to Paris. Thanks to my IHEDN classmates, it was a really memorable day. The kids had the opportunity to board incredible aircrafts (e.g., A400M, Falcon 9X) and have a very close look to others (e.g., Mirage 2000-D, Rafale)
This photograph was taken on May 11th, 2017 over sunny Paris by French satellite Pleiades circling at an altitude of nearly 700 km.
If you zoom in on the Ecole Militaire, south-east of the Eiffel Tower right at the end at the Champs de Mars, you may see a white “53” sign circled by a dotted line.
Each dot is a comrade from IHEDN’s 53rd Armement et Economie de Défense class.
Many thanks to CNES and Airbus for this quite unique facebook picture from space.
