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"



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!

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.

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!

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.