Super Cerdanya

After 48 hours back in the UK it was time to pack the car and hit the road for Europe.




The neighbourhood on its way out



The neighbourhood gone

I was honoured to be allowed to join son Mike along with a bunch of recent Juniors for 10 days down in Cerdanya in the Pyrenees, starting 14 April.



Sergi Pujol: the Dude of Catalonia

Cerdanya is a fabulous airfield expertly run by Sergi Pujol. Sergi is brilliant - always enthusiastic, keen to fly, happy to run with a minimum of rules but still highly professional: the guy is a star. The launching operation is smooth with 2 Rallyes on hand and some great tug pilots. The airfield has a very long tarmac runway set in a wide valley with loads of fields on hand for rope breaks etc. The tows can be long to get into convection and are charged at c€4.20 per minute - but they still averaged out at just c€50 per tow. The clubhouse is one of the nicest I have visited. It has huge picture windows facing the runway and mountains behind, a comfy indoor sitting area and balcony overlooking the apron outside, excellent coffee and good food. Downstairs is a restaurant that does a neat 3 course meal for €20 - bargain!




another breakfast on the clubhouse balcony




Creative artwork on the club K7

We had pretty good weather and flew 9 days out of 10. We could have flown the 10th but went for a bike ride round the valley while Adam Woolley and Sergi flew, found better conditions than expected and went to the highest mountain in the Pyrenees (Pico de Aneto) with a 13k' cloudbase.



crawling up a mountain somewhere



Mike Gatfield in his LS8 cruising back after a 460kms O/R



Now that is a GOOD sky

We had wave to at least 4000m amsl ;-) good therms to 13k' and a couple of really nice cross country out and returns to the West end of the Pyrenees. Everyone flew really well, had a good time and is likely to go back.....

USA SGP 2017 wrap-up

Wow. What a fantastic week. Here's my short video of the experience

Florida SGP 2017

And again, big thanks to Bo Michalowski and Maria Szemplinski for some great photos!

SGP USA Day 7

At last. It's amazing what a decent night's sleep does for you.

A day win

Today's task was 270kms and conditions were forecast to be blue. Max start height was 3800' and it was a struggle to get that high before the start. Down the first leg South most of us followed the highway and operated 3000' to 4500' in the blue. At the Southernmost turns there were clouds and I was up with the leaders but missed a therm on a leg North. Here we go again I thought: another ignominious day. But... at the third turn from home I deviated 45 degrees South back to clouds, bumbled along and then set off towards a power station near the penultimate turn (it must be like Didcot - right?). Fortune smiled on me and I cored 4.5knots 5kms short of the power station to get just below glide, and set off into the blue. 30kms out I turned the radio back on and heard Tony Condon 2kms in front. I spotted him 500' below and was able to overhaul him before the control turn to come home first - yay!


A great bunch of guys: the 2017 SGP USA pilots

The event finished up with an aeros display, a baby Gator on the runway and a dinner in the hangar.

Right on cue - Gator on the runway

So ends SGP USA 2017. What a fabulous week - great people, amazing weather, superb organisation - all in all a faultless contest. Once more, huge thanks to Andrew Ainslie for making it all possible.