Sunday 19 August 2012

Wrap up

Well what a fortnight. 12 days, over 50 hours flying and  4,400kms flown at between 111kph and 134kph. The weather was fabulous with cloudbases regularly over 10,000' and strong climbs. The food was excellent, the people friendly and the organisation of the comp itself was very good thanks to the Competition Director, Franca.

Alberto Pozzi, Luca's shoe-in and the lucky Brit


Flewett with flatulence and Dane frankly bored
 The drive is horrendous: 1200 miles each way taking three days in total. But it is well worth it. There can't be many places better suited to racing gliders. The tasks get very samey - but each day there's a new twist to the conditions and it really does become about finding better and better ways to shave time off. Once again it was a privilege to be flying with some great mates and excellent pilots. Roll on next year!

Thursday 16 August 2012

Day 8

Fine wing running from Katy G
Praise the Lord it was back to racing tasks today. Not a straightforward one though - lots of new places to visit and more ridges to work out on the 385km 4 point crochetting course. The pre-start gaggles were soemwhat intimidating today with plenty of multi-core thermalling and climbs up the side of lower cloudbase with plenty of gliders going in and out of cloud at 8500'. All very exciting.

We started at 2pm and had a patchy run South with a low save on the ridge just past the windmills that put us nicely back up to get into the first turn. The next leg was into new territory but the West facing ridges played ball and progress was made even if it was slow. The penultimate leg was into wind so had some good streets but was perilously close to airspace. I seemed to make time up on the last leg by finding a good core and then pushing onto the ridge East of Terni to pull up along that and scrape onto glide. 111kph was 4 kph slower than my Nemesis, Luca and my lead has shrunk to a mere 30 points - so it all comes down to the last day!


GA comes home 5th for the day at 133kph

Geoff looking pleased (you should see him looking miserable)
Geoff had a great run round and was 5th for the day. Ben remains top of the pile in Standard class with a 100 point advantage on Dane.

Day 9

Here we go again!
Day 9: 418kms and back on the milk run on the East of Italy. It was a day for local knowledge and the brave and those who went fast ran the ridges at low level then picked up the convergence at the second TP and ran that all the way North. Luca did that at 133kph whilst I took too many therms to stay higher and did 122kph. That meant second place overall for the comp but not such a bad result for the first time here.

Ben won the Standards with some consistently good flying, beating Dane into second place. All in all a good result for the Empire team!

Tuesday 14 August 2012

Day 7

FFS - another AAT.

This one was 2.5 hours in length as the forecast was again for thunderstorms later in the afternoon (and sure enough they did show up). I found it hard to string climbs together and it was much more of a glide and climb day but with some strong climbs every so often. A silly low point of 3450' amsl in the hills East of Foligno had the pulse increasin as landout options weren't great but I climbed away in 4.5kts to carry on and come home at 116kph, 10kph slower than 1st place. Too slow for the day and the lead has shrunk to just 76 points with 2 days remaining - the tension is mounting!

Monday 13 August 2012

Day 6

Geoff struggles with the AAT planning but later romps home third for the day
Yet another lahvely AAT. The forecast was for the weather to deteriorate quite fast during the afternoon and the task time was reduced on grid from 3 to 2.5hours as a result. I got to 10,000' just before the gate opened and trickled back the 10kms to the start line to make an early start and headed off South. A good climb at Celano put me back up and it was onwards into the first sector for 20kms or so and then turn to head North. The climbs on the way North weren't quite as easy to find and I got down to 5500' amsl near Vittore which was quite low enough thank you, but then ran into a solid 8kts which put me onto a 105kms final glide into the 2nd and 3rd sector and a pull up or two along a ridge line on the final 30kms. Home at 126kph put me third for the day but only losing 11pts on the day winner, Luca De Marchi.

Hmmm - best not to catch fire then...


Monday is a rest day so we only have three flying days left :-(
Your Italian correspondent goes flying - what a looker.

Sunday 12 August 2012

Day 5

Master tasksetter and all round superstar, Giorgio Galetto


Back to racing tasks again today with a 361kms task to Pescarasolla and North to Nocera Umbra. The day felt like it should have yielded some really fast speeds but very few people seemed to string it all together. The Empire team certainly seemed to struggle down near the first turn with a few low points on the ridges before we could get high enough to nip in and out of the turn. Going North was much better with a couple of very strong therms of 8kt average, with one peaking at 13.5kts on the vario average. Getting round the last two TP’s was surprisingly OK and I finished with a speed of 124kph. The LX9000 logger is doing funny things with the SD card download so it was a good job the Colibri 2 backup is working well. Man I would have been annoyed if I'd not scored for the day!
On tow for another fine day of racing

Saturday 11 August 2012

Day 4


Possibly Dane Dickinson, but more likely some chav tourist who's misplaced Magaluf



Day 4 was another AAT on the familiar format of hack down South then push back North of site and charge home. The added excitement today was avoiding a large chunk of airspace sat in the second sector which made the in-flight planning even more complex. As it was the run South was excellent albeit interspersed with the occasional light shower that smacked on the canopy with big fat raindrops.


Down at Settefrati - the view West (ugh)... and the view East (nice).

 
 Coming North the line of lift was strong up just beyond Rieti and then it was into bluer conditions for the last two sectors. Time to change gear then, and still I managed to run over time unnecessarily by going too deep into the final sector for a flight of 410kms-ish. The final glide back over Terni was enhanced by the view of two impressive waterfalls tumbling out of the Rieti plateau. Better yet we were back at a decent hour which meant more pool time. Sadly for Owen that included a view of him derigging in the field he landed in at the bottom of the hill the hotel sits on...

The view from the hotel pool area...


Friday 10 August 2012

Day 3


Ben and Andy wrestle with the AAT planning

There was a tradiational groan of disappointment from all pilots at today's briefing as it was announced there would be an AAT: Area Assigned Task. That left us all free to struggle with trigonometry and guesswork trying to figure out where would be best to go into each sector and maximise speed and distance in the allocated 3 hour racing window.


Ready to start with Rieti airfield at 11 o/c

The conditions were fabulous for most of the flight with cloudbase in excess of 11,000' in the start area and an incredible cloudstreet running South towards the first sector. I had a great run down and turned Settefrati deep in the first sector and then changed plan by only nicking the second sector and running back to the good street (the sea air spilling in from the East ruled out Gran Sasso as far as I was concerned). A long run North to Gualdo Taldino all went to plan and I was expecting a speed of 140kph and was worried about getting home early until 35kms out it all fell apart. The soft and fluffy valley of fun had a NE wind blowing into it and all of a sudden the picture ahead looked bad and I bailed West towards a landable area. The average speed ticked down depressingly but what I was really focussed on was a) not landing out and b) not breaking the glider. Finally I found a climb and clawed back onto a safe glide and trickled home 30 minutes over time. 6th for the day and now second overall - it's all still to play for and could have been so much worse!
On the second leg climbing at 11kts through 10,000'

Wednesday 8 August 2012

Day 2


Day 2 was expected to be a really classic Rieti day but it kinda didn't work out that way. The 15M class had a 396kms task to Roccarsolo in the south and Gualdo Taldino in the North. Launching was delayed an hour from 1200 to 1300hrs which should have set the alarm bells ringing in the first place - and once off tow I just could not get high near the start and finally set off at 7000' amsl. I lost a good 10 minutes on the run to Celano getting stupid low on the way as the ridges just weren't working as well as I'd hoped and the lift was really only thermal generated. Just after Celano I met Roberto Romano in the Ventus 1B and followed him across Lake Flewett onto the next ridge and into a convergence therm to 10,000'. A quick nip round the turn and back then it was off on a long, long glide towards Assergi. The Gods were smiling as I pulled 11knots out of what felt like the weeds near Assergi and got into the seabreeze effect on Gran Sasso. A run up past Vittore and out to Gualdo went OK but I lost more time short of Gualdo mucking about in 3.5kts before shifting a couple of kms into the 7kts good stuff. The soft and fluffy valley of fun (I refuse to call it by the traditional name of Death Valley) was working well and once over the last ridge it was time to push the stick forwards, up to VNE over the hotel and in for a speed of 123kph. Not good enough by 44 seconds and 1B won the day. What a hoot!     
The view from final glide - spot the airfield!

Tuesday 7 August 2012

Day 1

The pride of Britain (and NZ)
So yesterday was a scrub as the weather was just too stable. The temperature peaked at 39 degrees so the only place to be was the pool and very nice it was too



Italian Tow Out Equipment

Today, Tuesday was Day 1 and the weather was goooooooood. A 15 knot Westerly had all the ridges humming and therms were peaking in excess of 11knots at times. I had a very pleasant run round at 134kph and only got mildly scared once or twice. The embarassing fact that a Duo Discus ran round at 152kph is to be ignored thank you. Ben came second in the standards so all in all the Empire Team put up a good show. More again tomorrow please!

A decent sized Tug fleet for the 82 gliders on the grid 


Practice Days


2A running South past somewhere or other

Well the drive was well worth it! We had three great practice days where Ben led the newbies round pointing out the crap field options, where to land in lakes and the occasional valley with landable fields. The conditions were really good with a cloudbase peaking at 11,200' and climbs of 10kts in places. What's really impressive is the energy lines: ridges that run and run and run...
We did 430kms at 115kph on day 1, 360kms at 125kph on day 2 and 330kms at 113kph on day 3: nice work if you can get it! The only disappointment was the Master Gardener landing wheels up on day 2 as he was distracted by the requirement to chat away to the tower and follow their instructions.
The flying is fab - but the launching is, shall we say,a little chaotic. day 2 I nearly ran 500kgs of ASW27 leading edge into the back of a rope runner who walked backwards at "all out" and was only saved by Tony Flewett bellowing at him to move.


Geoff Tabbner in his new pride and joy: Ventus 2CT "GA"


Thursday 26 July 2012

Copa Internationale di Mediterraneo


OK so it is really stretching it using the Serres Bimble blog for an Italian Mountain competition but what the hey!

August 3rd to 17th promises to be great fun racing around the hills East of Rome. We have a goodly number of folk going:-
  1. yours truly
  2. Ben Flewett
  3. Andy Perley
  4. Geoff Tabbner
  5. Lord Gorringe
  6. Uvain McCormack
  7. Dane Dickinson
  8. Leroy Wells
The only daunting factor is that drive to get there: 1100 miles: ouch.

It all kicks off in just a few days - can't wait!

Tuesday 12 June 2012

Wrap up

Friday was a scrub but the final day, Saturday was flyable and we were set a 270kms task up to Savines, down to Mezel (near Digne) and home via Orpierre. The issue for the day was when to start as a band of cirrus was due to pass through late afternoon...
One of the start gaggles
The start gaggle held on and on as it looked like the therms were slowly working their way up, but we eventually set off around 1430. It was, for once, fairly straightforward getting into the mountains and onto Coupe. The way up to Savines was along the Parcour and went well, as did the return trip which involved arriving on Dormillouse at 7000' and flying along, gaining height to arrive at Trois Eveches at around 9500'. Then the fun started. The cirrus had arrived and for those laggards amongst us who are slow, speed was further degraded as the therms were dying. A glide round Mezel led to Vaumuse and a crawl up to Authon, onto Gache and a slow glide across the valley to Chabre. The winners of the day were instead able to glide round Mezel, straight across the valley to the Lure, take a therm and nip up round Orpierre and be on glide for home. I instead scratched away behind Chabre then dropped into the West facing cliff-faces at the end of the Lure and scraped up to the ridge line, drop off the back and creep away 300metres below glide. A weak therm, and then a line of weak wave on the East of the Durance valley let me get back though, with a princely 90 metres in hand on arrival.  
Nipping up Coupe on the way to the first turn
So - that was that. I had a fabulous experience and learnt shed loads. I also wound up rather liking Vinon and will go back there for a comp again.

Thursday 7 June 2012

Sixieme

Launching into 8/8 cirrus and a strong South Easterly. Deep Joy.
Oh for goodness sake. Another very difficult day to get started and into the mountains: several people gave up and didn't try. On the plus side I made it into the perimeter of St Auban today (on the way out - again, all of 25kms javelin throw ) and took a relight to go flying in the mountains where the South Easterly wave was good to 11,000' North of Digne.
Vinon is a great airfield, the people here are fabulous but I detest the local meteorology!

Wednesday 6 June 2012

V

1h 30m AAT Serres/Savines.
Couldn't get high before the start, hit the spuds after 25kms and 500m short of St Auban's airfield. Bugger.
At least the glider is OK (not for want of trying to break it today).

Quatre

A grid in sunshine: again.


Eta: gosh those wings are long.
 To quote the competition website "A very difficult day with an air mass not so good as expected !!!".

Quite. It all conformed to the lore that the day after mistral is often not good. The 15's had a 303km out and return to Plampinet and the forecast was for 4-6kt therms to 14,000' near Briancon. The start thermals were densely populated but well behaved and I started at 3pm. The first climb near Puimosson was 2-3kts once I'd found it (helped by the determination not to land at Puimosson for another bollocking) and from there it was on to the high ground and just on to the top of Coupe and the Par Cours. A good run along the Par Cours with a bunch of other gliders led us on to Morgon at Ridge top height and across to Guillaume arriving just above the trees. It was pretty busy with c15 gliders creeping up the face but again everyone was disciplined. The climb pretty much stopped at ridge top height so we slid off and across the top of St Crepin airfield and on to the Eastern slopes of the Durance valley. I just could not climb above 7200' here despite seeing a few gliders higher up. I assume it was a strong inversion and I failed to find the punchy one to get up. I spent two hours trying though, switching ridges, sides of the valley etc etc. At one point the Flarm anti-collision fired when I didn't expect it and a Robin tug flashed past then started S turning above the wooded slopes below me at which point I realised there'd been an incident and I cleared out the way (on return we found out Giorgio Galetto of Italy had crashed but, thank goodness, has only light injuries. Get Well soon Giorgio).





Around 1830 I gave up 18kms short of the turn and thought about heading South. I've 4 days holiday left and nothing to prove so couldn't see the point of increasing the risk for one turnpoint. Of course as soon as I got to Prachaval Jay found me 8kts to 9000' but the decision was made and rather than try again we set off for Guillaume. A really slow 0.8kt climb here to 7000' put me in glide for Gap so I staggered off towards there, found another 0.6kts on the way and finally got on glide for Sisteron which is where we landed for an aerotow retrieve, finally arriving at Vinon at 2125hrs. That was a LONG day.   


On tow back from Sisteron: don't the LX screens work well! 
 

Hunk of the Day: Jay Rebbeck
Jay from Essex, 17, will be recognised by some readers from series 11 of "Big Brother". Currently auditioning for the next series of  "House" thanks to his Healthcare credentials, Jay is sponsored by Chanel sunglasses for this competition.


Monday 4 June 2012

Troisieme

8 and a bit knots abeam good ol' Serres
The Mistral had cleared the humid air away and today we had a 25-30 knot Northwesterly on the ground. The 15M task was North to Col de Cabre, down to Dignes and back North east to Savines then home.We launched at 1300hrs and were required to stay below 2000m until the start opened. There was wave pretty much right over the site so when the start line opened it was easy to pop up to the airspace limit of 11,500', but tricky to work out who was 15M and who was starting (there are no start announcements made on the radio either). I started at the airspace limit and ran up to the Lure and into 7 knots of wave in the Jabron valley. From there I reckoned to jump up to the Chabre and wave hotspot at Rosans, but failed to get a really good wave climb and instead dropped down out of the wave to turn Col de Cabre and run the ridges past Serres and across to Sisteron. At least today I was with a few other gliders for some of the time and that helped mark the good climbs which made for a good run round. At 106kph I thought I might have done OK, but the winning speed of 126kph put paid to that hope and I finished up 21st for the day out of the 29 competitors. 

The view from GA looking up towards Mt Blanc
 



















Geoff had  a storming run round and came 7th in his 18M class but Russell and Mike had less luck and indeed Mike landed out at les Crots 85 miles North of Vinon. The retrieve was 170 miles there and back but we did it, including derig, in 3 hours. I love French motorways!

57 a trouve un bonne champ. Bon Travail M. Jeune
 
 Hunk of the day: Phil Jeffreys
Phil, 107, from Cambridge enjoyed several years as the TV face of a popular fishfingers brand and still vigorously denies those salacious press rumours. He now enjoys lawnmowing and shaving as his pastimes. 

Sunday 3 June 2012

La Suite

The day dawned humid and pretty grey so there weren't many hopes riding anyway. However, at briefing the 15M class was asked to grid and duly did, sat around for a while in the hope of a weather window and then scrubbed at 1400hrs. That gave plenty of time to put things away, potter round the lake on boats or mountain bike or snatch a siesta and then congregate for a BBQ at Chez Jon/Geoff. A few games of table tennis, boules and drink the local Rose and consume vast quantities of burnt meat made for a very pleasant evening. Tomorrow threatens to be a bit of a wave day which sounds rather good fun.

Hunk of the day: Mike Young

Mike, 23, whose hobbies include trampolining and pole dancing is always easy to spot with his flourescent tips.

Saturday 2 June 2012

La Premiere Jour

The task: 300kms set going North to Roche Ram ( near St Crepin)/Col de Cabre (near Serres) and home.

Jay Rebbeck had sage words for me before the start: it looks tricky getting to the high stuff so it might be best to go with other gliders for the first 50kms. That sounded like excellent advice so I hung around in the start until 3 pm and set off when I thought a couple of others were starting.
Cloudbase was not great at c5000amsl near Dignes and running the start of the Par Cours was interesting but worked. The really exciting bit was pushing on to Seynes and nipping over a saddle to find the next climb. After that things perked up and the run past Dormillouse, Morgon and Guillaume all felt like familiar territory but man I was SLOW compared to the guys that know what they're doing. I also made life harder than it needed to be by flopping onto a ridge next to Sisteron at 2500' amsl or 800' above the town which is a tad low, but the valley breeze was working well as evidenced by the flags flying on the citadel battlements . 78kph is pathetic really when compared to the winning speeds of 115kph but I got more for my money from the day.
Geoff struggled manfully round but had to fire his turbo 19kms short of the field: a heroic effort nonetheless. By the time we'd put covers on and tided up it was 9.30 so Pork chops and Frites at the onsite restaurant and a couple of pressions seemed in order. All in all a fun day out!

Hunk of the day: Russell

Russell, 21, from Nottingham enjoys long walks and flower arranging. He's never short of a well arranged bunch.


Saturday 26 May 2012

2012 Edition

Now I hate to be called a creature of habit, but looking back at my logbook that's 12 years in a row at Serres, and 20 years of flying in the Southern French Alps in total. So I figure it might just about be time to try a competition in the area, and that's the plan for 2012. Hence it's off to Vinon for the "Provence Glide" competition which coincides with the pre-european Championships and a right good kicking at the hands (or should that be feet?) of some of the World's best pilots. My original goal was to avoid coming last, but looking at the entry list I think that's far too ambitious, so I've revised that to having just one day where I don't come last. Too much to ask? We'll see...
Sadly that does mean not flying at Serres this year which is a real shame, but I suspect we'll be going overhead it a few times and I'm sure I'll be back there in 2013, so I can't see the point in changing the title of the blog.
Forward to the ferry, and let the kicking commence!