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.

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!

All too soon it's over for another year

The option was there to fly for the day but it looked like a replay of Friday so we instead packed up and headed for the ferry, taking 14 hours from Serres to home.

That was another year of very interesting and fun flying. 56 hours in 9 days and something like 3,200kms XC. Wave to FL195, 11kt therm riding , ridge bashing, public entertaining, alfresco dining, poker playing, scenery rubber necking etc etc. It's a fabulous place, a privilege to fly from there with great mates and to learn from the true master of the skies: Klaus Ohlmann. The guy is unbelievably knowledgable, shares all his learning openly and retains boundless enthusiasm and energy. He's unique.

Yes, you need to stay in your limits, always have a series of options to choose from if/when things don't work out as planned, constantly stay on your game with focus and consciously manage the stress to make good decisions. But if it appeals and you get the chance: go.

Final cake of the day: Sue's Kiwi Cake (looks yummy to me)

Diamonds in the sky

So it's congratulations to Mike Collett on his diamond height. He started the day with a high speed run over the field to get a low point of 2,900' and finished off with 19,500' over Gap.

We launched as a compact team of T6, KV, JTU and HA at 1100 and started with a reconnaisance of last night's tragic dual fatality 10kms East of site. Very, very sad as the two brothers were good old boys.

We ran St genis/Chabre/Gache and out to Authon where there was a tetchy little debate about whether we'd started too early. We did howeverget away and ran down to Aiguines on the Verdon gorge and then to the airfield at Fayence where we got a hazy view of the Med. Then it was a scrabble to get back up and on to Briancon where cloudbase was 13,000'. We ran back towards Serres over the Ecrins (always fun running the spines at high level) and tracked for Serres and photo opportunities. By accident we ran into wave at 9,500' and after a little perseverence climbed all the way up to the airspace ceiling at 19,500' .

Cake of the day: JTC it's Eccles Cake

A cautionary tale

Rule number one is don't hit the hill.

The pictures here are very instructive - thanks to John Herman for permission to share them. John's tale is roughly as follows...

"I was soaring Les Monges with one other glider. On the third beat I moved out from the hill to make way for the oncoming other machine. As I did there appeared a hole in the air and the glider simply dropped with no response to controls, even though I pushed forward and applied full aileron away from the hill."

That really is John standing on the hill just above the glider straight after the impact. Thank the Lord he's alright. Let's be careful out there.

Oh look - the Mistral's back

The wind was blowing again this morning. Mike Collett and Will Ellis were in hyperactive mode and beat me to the grid (sacrilege!), launching before 1000. We followed a few minutes later and launched onto Arambre where Dan enjoyed 14kts lift stright off tow. A wander up the spine to the West of the field provided one of the easiest jumps to wave I can remember: a seamless transition from ridge to 6kts wave up to 10,000'.

Sadly back on the ground things weren't going so well for the Duo as the tug had a VERY heavy landing and had to be checked before Andy and Ben were hooked on. Meantime we charged down to Mt Ventoux and then along the Lure to meet the Duo there. Then it was East via Gache, Trainon, Auribeau and Blayeul and out onto the Cheval Blanc. A run South East to Logis du Pin and a turn North set us nicly on the convergence line (again!) which was working really well. The motorcyclists at Cime de la Bonnette appreciated the entertainment too.

More charging around at high speed, swapping between therms, ridge and wave ensued until tummy rumblings drew us down and into the Hotel du Nord. 9 hours in the air for Mike and Will - animals!

Cake of the day: Jaffa (but are they really biscuits?)

Lightning never strikes twice...

The sky was overcast when we awoke today, it was hot, humid and really rather unpleasant. There was talk of a day off and a round of poker was played. One player clearly won this (by a country mile - but that was forgotten later in the day for the second hand, not that I'm bitter). By 1330hrs I could see a clearance on the satpic so took a launch anyway, along with Andy and Ben in JTU. The climb on Arambre was easy up to 5,000', there was a ridge climb to 5,500' on St Genis and it was off to Chabre. The ridge here was working OK but therms were a better bet to 7,000' and then it was off to the Lure. Here there was a clear Cu Nim building but we figured we had a good half hour before it got really active. WRONG!

A bolt of lightning 500m from JTU's wingtip encouraged us to depart pronto and head back North to a wave bar forming near Serres which took us to 8,000'. A bit of meandering around bars out to Pic de Bure and it was time to go home and have a dip in the pool, a good meal and a second round of poker (that was reset and ignored those who had clearly been winning earlier, not that I'm bitter).

Cake of the day: Eclair (for all you French speakers)