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.

SGP USA Day 6: Spaceport day

We awoke to grey skies and the threat of rain in the air. The director sensibly scrubbed early and we held a bit of a forum, discussing start rules and the dangers of landing low over a public road. Of course, by 1400 the sky looked amazing and in the UK we'd have been on a 500kms task at least!


Paula and I left site and headed East to Cape Canaveral, or the Kennedy Space Center as it is now known. What a great place! The visitors centres are really well done with the consoles from the original moon landing launch, the stunningly massive Saturn V rocket, the rocket assembly building, transporter, and Atlantis shuttle. I have to admit I must have had something in my eye when the final IMAX style movie ended and the screen became transparent to reveal the Shuttle - very well done indeed.


"Mos Isley spaceport: You will not find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy"



Typical. All that work I did to get a US glider pilot licence and the ship is out of airworthiness.

Up Slack...

 

...All Out



Saturn V. The scale of the thing is incredible.





SGP USA Day 5

Yet another glorious morning followed by cumulus popping at midday. But first a task briefing supported by Dunkin' Donuts, coffee, Bagels and mini doughnuts found by the crew.

Big Excitement, Small Doughnuts

Off tow into a 5 knot climb to 5000', hang around for the start gate to open at 1340 and then charge off North with the pack of 12. Cloudbase built to over 6500' and I was feeling so much more awake and really enjoyed the flight. As per usual I disconnected with the leaders in the last 50kms and came home 7th. It was a really enjoyable 300 kms though.

Today's task

After landing we met for prizegiving and a lasagne meal in the hangar. Although it was 50 miles away we could all see the SpaceX reusable rocket launch from Cape Canaveral to our East. Finally, against a glorious sunset the luckiest man in Florida rolled his beautiful Super Cub out of his private hangar behind his house (which also contains an ASH25, Nimbus 3, Stearman and Texan T-6, oh, and a garage with Willys Jeep, '64 Corvette and various other toys) to take his wife for a sunset flight.

Is this the best man cave on the planet?

I need a man cave like this

Time for a sunset flight in the Cub

Poor thing, he's only just back from requalifying for the B-17 Flying Fortress. It must be awful being Shaun.

SGP USA Day 4

Oh pooh.

Contest Director John Godfrey: doing a superb job

Today was great weather - 7000' cloudbase, strong therms, but I was very tired after a few nights poor sleep and I have form flying when tired. So, I throttled it all right back and was very, very careful and desperately slow. There is no way I'm taking risks with someone else's glider

Victor Whisky back safe and sound

 We're sleeping in a room at SLGP clubhouse and sadly there are some extremely inconsiderate Japanese students here who stay up past midnight and keep waking us up. Despite several trys they can't be persuaded to leave at a reasonable hour and short of resorting to violence I've run out of ideas, so tonight and tomorrow night we're decamping to an offsite hotel to get some proper sleep.

On the plus side, I've got to grips with all the instrumentation and had a penalty free day ;-)

SGP USA Day 3

A longer still task today: 418kms South then North West. The weather is really very nice - balmy evenings and clear blue skies to start each day.

Getting ready to go with the glamourous Brolly Dolly

I got the start fractionally wrong and got a 30 second penalty for being a few metres above the 4000' max height, but had a good run South stopping in 7 knots for the first climb to over 5000'. Round the first three turns things were looking very good indeed with me higher than a couple of gliders 500M in front - all very good. But then, a poor routing decision by me took me into a lake effect and I suffered badly, getting 15kms behind the leaders. Rather angry I chased after the gaggle and succeeded in catching them up at the Northernmost turn which was in the blue/sea air from the Gulf of Mexico. Nipping round the turn meant retracing steps back into the convection and then South to a sea breeze front looking feature. Again my routing was sub-optimal and I came home 7th, 180 seconds behind the winner: close margins for a 4 hour flight!

Say what? The ClearNav does what???

Big thanks to Bo Michalowski and Maria Szemplinski for some great photos!