Judith's blog

The electricity board warned us a couple of days ago that they were going to switch off the power today between 8am – 11am and 4pm – 7pm. This complicated our departure plans and meant we had to plan our day a bit better. However, getting up at 7am to shower and hoover was scuppered by the over-indulgence in cava the night before. We loaded up the car and cleaned until the lights came back on, finished off and were on our way. The forecast for Millau was crap (Meteofrance said rain, Meteoblue said howling winds), so we didn’t rush to get there. However, as we got closer the cloud started clearing and we could see little evidence of wind. We have rotten luck flying in Millau every time we drive through, so we weren’t raising our hopes, but as we dropped down from the plateau into down, a paraglider launched. I wasn’t feeling very well, so Geoff was flying and we raced up the hill and got ready fast. Because it had only just started coming on, it was still weak (and there was very little wind), so Geoff and the other two pilots went nearly straight down. When I picked him up at the bottom, others had launched and conditions had improved a lot. People were soaring and thermalling up. We debated whether there was time to fly again, but at the end of the day, it just meant having to drive later at night, whereas we don’t often get the chance to fly at Millau, so I took Geoff up again.

He took off and got straight up. He was heading out over the town, but with it being nearly 7pm, it was time to land and get back on the road. Whether we’re coming or going, it’s essential to get past Paris before we sleep, and we kept driving until 3.30am, when we pulled into a service station to have a cramped three hour sleep in the front seats of the car before setting off again to catch the ferry in Dunkerque.

See photos of today.

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Geoff writes: incredibly, waking up after a painful night sleeping in the front seats of the car, it seemed like it just possibly might be flyable at Millau. We had about 150 miles still to go, so set off after a quick coffee in the motorway services. Of course, it wasn’t that straightforward, and we did drive through some fairly thick fog, but shortly before Millau, it cleared. So, for once, no wind, no rain.

We went to the landing field hoping to get a ride up, but by early afternoon we decided to drive up, and top land if possible (a tricky slope landing) or fly in turn. The sky was not epic, but it seemed like it might be ok, and occasionally there were birds thermalling. Once on top, there were a couple of other people there, and we played musical sites – being undecided which side to launch from. Soon, more people turned up, including some commercial tandems. People started launching, and, mostly, going down, or just getting one brief thermal, then going down. I waited a long time, not really wanting just a top to bottom, and finally launched – and had a top to bottom.

Judith had decided not to fly, thinking the day was over. I didn’t think it was, and after she came to get me, we drove back up again (it’s only a 15 minute drive). I launched again almost immediately, and this time it was good – not great heights, the most I got was about 760′ ATO, but far better than it had been before. It got scratchy sometimes, which did get a bit disconcerting, since the usual rules of the air do not apply in France – but still ridge soarable. I flew for an hour or so, and then chose to land – so, far from the day being over, it was pretty good. Stunning views, beautiful site.

The forecast at Millau for the next few days was poor, so we set off for Spain.

See photos of today.

Now we are in Spain, the live site/comp info (the Twitter feed) will be switched off until we get back to the UK in April.

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I wasn’t too hung over after the party either! Time to say good-bye, only to meet loads of people back at the train station. I got there early, followed shortly after by Kirsty, Pat, Alex and Dave B. Kirsty was getting concerned that we wouldn’t all fit in, especially when Sarah, Barbara, Chris, Ruth and Mick turned up too with all their bags. The train is a single carriage, narrow gauge train with no space for luggage. Most people on it seem to be train enthusiasts who book their outings in advance.

On the way up, Steve Newcombe had been charged an extra fare for the seat for his paraglider, so we were prepared for hassle. The conductor nearly had a nervous breakdown when he pulled into St Andre station and saw all our bags and he started gesticulating wildly and talking in rapid-fire French. I think our determination to get on the train was evident, because he stood aside but told us no way we could leave any luggage in the aisles. We managed to pile everything between two rows of seats with Alex and Dave holding it in place and the people sitting either side glancing over their shoulders nervously every time we approached a bend. We had to stand or sit at the drivers knees for the first hour, but as the train got closer to Nice we all found seats. I would have loved to have taken photos of the stunning scenery, but my rucksack was stashed under a load of others bags and was inaccessible.

At Nice, Chris assured us that the airport bus was only down the road and then one block away, so we walked. He somewhat mis-sold us the trip. A sweaty 15 minutes later our funny looking group arrived at the main station – you need to appreciate that Alex, for example, was carrying two paragliders and looked like a Sherpa.

We ended up at the wrong terminal and then lost the marshalling team, so never got to say goodbye and thanks. Once we had checked in and got to the waiting area we were reunited with housemates David, Bren and Richard, so it was another round of good-byes. I’m not one to say no to hugs!

Back in Brum it was nice to see Geoff, but it was cold, dark and windy. We stopped off in a pub on the way home for dinner and to my utter amazement, they had their Christmas decorations up and all the staff were wearing shirts advertising their Christmas booking offers. Seems summer is really over.

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I decided to fly on the last day and the main objective was to enjoy it. The forecast was for windier conditions and an evening flight looked unlikely, so I went up in the first bus and got ready. As we were setting up, wave bars started forming in the distance and I decided that I would fly until they got closer and then I would go down. I didn’t fancy flying in mountains with lots of lenticulars around.

The task was designed to keep us away from the wind and we had to go into wind to a start cylinder 3.5km away, then 20km north and zigzag a bit then back to the HQ. I took off 20 minutes after the window opened and spent the next 40 minutes getting high and trying to push forward. I headed out over the ridge in front but failed to clear it and had to head back to the launch ridge. It was turbulent in the lee, so I resolved to get a lot more height before my second attempt. I got a strong thermal and got to 2300m and cleared the ridge easily, although not without a little kicking. I lost a lot of height getting to the start, but managed to drop back onto the ridge, climb up and get back to the launch ridge to start making my way to the first turn point. I ridge soared to the end of the ridge, while Calvo called the conditions level 2 (caution). Adrian Thomas and Wagga had been calling 2 or 3 for a while, so I decided then that the task would soon be cancelled and I didn’t fancy being in the bottom of a windy valley or having to wait for a retrieve bus, so I about turned and headed back to St Andre. The task was cancelled 10 minutes after I landed.

The ironic thing was that I didn’t actually find it that rough or scary. I was flying around thinking that if this was how the other days had been, I shouldn’t have been so wimpy and just got on with the flying. However, when others landed they said it was the worst day of the lot, really turbulent and nasty (others reported nasty conditions further along the course line, so I think I didn’t fly far enough to get into the really rough stuff). It just goes to show how important not just your attitude is to a day, but also your feeling. You can be really up for a task and accept roughness, or be worried about the conditions and feel the turbulence as really threatening. Since I wasn’t bothered about the task, I flew as far as I wanted and as far as I enjoyed it and when faced with a bunch of valleys I didn’t think it was sensible to be in, I made the choice to fly away, so had a nice flight.

The flight (and stunning views) did make up for some of my negative views of the place and it’s clearly a great place to fly, but I’m not sure I’ll be back in a hurry for an all out racing comp – at least not without going there to do some free flying first. There are rumours of the Nats going back there next year and I think that would be a shame. For one thing I don’t think it’s good to go to the same venue in consecutive years and for another, given that nearly 10% of the competitors had incidents, it might be good to have a more relaxed venue to attract a wider field of competitiors – the Nats are not just for the big boys after all.

Prize giving was fun and great to see Kirsty second overall in serial class, and local boy Neil Roberts second in the champs. And of course well done to Craig and Wagga as well.

The dancing went on into the small hours. And I had the great honour to be told to f*** off by Bob Drury who was the DJ. Apparently he doesn’t do requests!

See photos of today’s flying and prize giving.

Geoff writes: the final score – ten reserve deployments, one power line landing,  and at least two tree landings. And another incident I don’t know of – the competition organisers said there were 14 incidents in total. There were about 146 pilots, so about 10% of the pilots had serious incidents. That seems quite a high risk to me. Maybe it’s a reflection of the venue, maybe it’s the type of gliders people fly. Flying is always going to have an element of danger, there will always be accidents, and people don’t have to fly, they choose to do so, it’s their decision. But for me personally, a 10% chance of an accident like this is way, way too high!

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I decided to have the day off today, and get away from the crowds. I have been surrounded by people for two weeks and fancied a bit of solitude. After a lie in I did some work and then the went for a leisurely lunch on my own and was snoozing at the river when the race leaders came in. It was a nail biting race between Luc Armant and Neil Roberts, and Neil won. I was going to go for an evening flight, but ended up just driving for Emma and Mark Begg, who is here on holiday.

See photos of today.

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Feeling better, I decided to go up the hill with everyone. The reports from yesterday’s task were scary. The task was up in the high mountains, past the Cheval Blanc and back. Another blue day, the height gains were impressive, but this also meant people were climbing through the inversion and shear layers. By the end of the task, the incident count was five reserve deployments, including Mark Hayman, who has a stable fracture of a vertebrae and has broken a wing off the same bone. He’s walking and not in a brace, but will not be able to fly the rest of the comp. There were two other incidents, with Kirsty and another pilot in trees. Conditions were described from ok to ‘fruity’. Having only witnessed one parachute deployment in 15 years of flying, I think this is a little excessive. I prefer to do my SIV courses separately from my XC flying and I really don’t like how wild this place is and how strongly the valley winds blow.

So today, we got up in the early bus and then the wind was strong over the back. We assumed it would come more on with the thermals, but even when the window opened, it was still often 90 degrees off and people were launching from the south take-off, whilst we were on the west. The launch conditions did come good and everyone got off safely.

The task today was out front in the valley, where you could just about see the turn points. I was much more relaxed about it and set off reasonably early and got straight into a thermal. The trick with the start was to place yourself downwind of the first turn point, which is the other side of the valley. So you do the hard work getting across the valley (via a top up ridge), and getting high, in the hour before the race starts. I got to 8500’ and got onto the top up ridge easily. Others were marking a thermal that would get us over to the ridge we needed to be on. It was all going fine, when the guy in front of me had a big blow-out and lost most of his wing. Since I was heading in the same direction, I assumed I would be hit by the same turbulence. I didn’t have the stomach for it, and turned away. On thinking about it, if I was free-flying, I would not have taken off in the middle of the day, not chosen to fly where we were and not chosen to fly in an area I feel so out of my depth. This competition is all about pushing myself so far out of my comfort zone that I am actually not enjoying the flying in the slightest. And in that case, why am I doing it? Decision made, I flew down to the landing field to have a day off. I’m in danger of scaring myself to the extent that it will have an adverse affect on my confidence, and given how great I felt after Ager, I don’t want to do that. I feel that the main thing I would learn here is to push myself beyond my point of fear and I already know I can do that. So I’m done with the comp. From now on it’s just fun evening flying and a holiday. I’m much happier now.

There was another parachute deployment during the task, and although people said it was mellower, I’m still pleased I just did my little hop.

No photos… too scared to take my hands off the brakes. I hope to take some in a nice evening flight.

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We went off to launch and it looked like a great day. I started to feel a bit woozy while setting up and once the window opened I realised I had a migraine coming on. I thought the safest for all concerned was if I just flew down. I landed fine, packed up and went back to the house. I did come out briefly to try to talk to Geoff, but I was feeling very dizzy and head-achy, so I skunked off to bed while the race leaders headed in. I was in bed the rest of the day/night.

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