February 2009
Monthly Archive
Saturday, 21st February 2009
Geoff writes: Judith was sick with a migraine, so, very caringly, I left her in her sick bed and went to fly. The sky looked brilliant on the way. Arrived there (Santa Brigida) just as Erwan landed. He said it was really good, and suggested a small out and return XC together – him on his comp wing, me on the 1/2. Fair enough.
Didn’t work out like that though. After I launched, the wind picked it, it was pretty rough, I wasn’t penetrating much, and it was difficult to get high – it was very thermic, but the thermals were very broken with the wind. I decided to top land, and, a few collapses later, finally got it down. A short while later Erwan also landed. Some more people turned up, and we all sat it out for an hour or two, finally re-launching late afternoon – still windy, but much less thermic.
In the end, the wind switched for a while, and everybody flying got flushed. Not a great day, but it was very warm and very sunny, so can’t be bad.
PS. Sounds like it was fun back in the UK on the Mynd – Wayne got 4000′ ATO in wave. Unless it’s a wind-up.
Friday, 20th February 2009
Geoff writes: We couldn’t decide whether to go to the beach or to go flying. In the end we thought it might be a bit cold at the beach, and we’d be better off there next week when the temperature should be in the 20s. So flying it was; we’d left it a bit late to go to France, or anywhere else other than Santa Brigida (what a surprise).
It was flyable all day, from when we arrived about 1.00, to when we left about 6.00. Quite a few people there – three Catalans, one Brit (me), one German (Felix), one Belgian (Vincent), and one person who’s still somewhat confused about her nationality (Judith). Thermic at first. Only a couple of very short sink cycles, though one of them was enough to send me down – Judith retrieved me though. Then just ridge lift later, very smooth, very lifty.
We were a bit careful about getting too high – there was supposed to be a strongish north wind, and we were worried about the shear layer, so didn’t let ourselves get more than 800′ ATO.
Judith was practising her launches on the Gradient. At one point she said she thought she’d cracked it, then promptly got lifted off her feet and dumped on her butt again. So back to the practise launches. She had improved by the end of the day though.
So a pleasant day.
Thursday, 19th February 2009
Our second day in Andorra. We were hoping to ski all the Vallnord sectors and wanted to go to the Arcalis area, but on asking how far it was to get there, we decided it wasn’t worth the 50 minute drive, so we skied the Arinsal and Pals area again. There was plenty to keep us occupied… great snow, great piste grooming and you could go really, really fast.
We burned our noses yesterday, because stupidly we forgot the sun tan lotion. We made exactly the same mistake today, leaving it not in the hotel, but in the car. We look like a couple of Rudolf look-a-likes tonight. Long drive home, but we will definitely go to Andorra again, should we get the chance.
Wednesday, 18th February 2009
As part of our skiing season tickets we get free entry to different resorts. This year we got two free passes for Vallnord in Andorra, so we booked a hotel in Arinsal, which turned out to be 50m from the ski lift. We’re not used to falling out of bed and straight into the white stuff, but I could get used to it. The weather started off a little cloudy, but then the sky cleared and it was gorgeous. Sunny with fantastic views of the mountains all around.
We skied the Arinsal and Pals sectors and it was excellent. Best skiing we’ve had all year. A much larger piste area than La Molina – but much too far to drive each day.
Tuesday, 17th February 2009
Judith 18 Feb 2009 | : Trying, but failing, to fly
What to do on the way to Andorra? We decided to go and try to fly on the way. Nicky was up for going flying and we decided that Berga would be worth a go – although no guarantees. As we left home, we could see medium-sized wave bars forming. Hmmm. As we got closer to Ripoll, the wave bars had become massive. Seven layer blob wave mixed in with traditional lenticulars, it all looked very impressive, but not very flyable. Nicky phoned to say that the wave as in Berga as well, according to the webcam, but we decided to go anyway, as you never know and it’s always nice to catch up with Nicky.
When we got there the wind was west and the clouds were scooting over the launch from the NE. We waited around and chatted in the landing field, when we heard loud shouting and music from above. A local pilot, Jordi, had waited for a cycle and got off. We went up with him again, but the wind was north at the 2nd Maria. We went to the 1st Maria and it was on, but light, so Jordi flew home and Geoff got ready. He’s tried, but failed, to fly Berga so many times because of bad weather/wrong wind direction, that even a top-to-bottom seemed a good idea, just to break his bad luck streak for the place. As he was on launch the wind dropped and went east, so he tried a running reverse launch. He got the wing up, ran to the edge and literally jumped in the air. He landed on a shelf two meters below. Nicky and I nearly wet ourselves laughing.
That was it for flying. I suppose you could argue that he has now popped his Berga cherry… 0.5 seconds flying and a TTB of 2 meters. Stick that in your logbook, Geoff!
Monday, 16th February 2009
What a lovely day out. We went flying with Nani and Joan at Santa Brigida. We were all getting excited on the drive up the hill because there were small cumulus about and the sun was shining.
I need to do some serious work with my new glider ready for the season, so I tried some ballast, having weighed in this morning at smack, bang in the middle of the weight range. My strong wind launches have been crap on the Aspen (I was warned about its speedy pull-up characteristics, but have not yet mastered it), and I can learn a lot more about thermalling it, so off to work I went…
Our first flight was very, very thermic. Strong climbs and kind of rough. We all flew way out into the valley and then all top landed. High cloud came in and we all flew again. The high stuff took the edge of the wind and the sharp edges off the thermals and made them nice, big and a joy to be in. Geoff and I both got high and considered going over the back, but decided to stick around the area.
Because I wanted to practise my launches, I wanted to do lots of touch and goes, but I couldn’t get down. There was lift everywhere and the glider really wants to fly. Getting down in the end meant some pretty radical turns near ground level. I finally managed to get better at ground-handling by launching the glider on the centre A lines only, which works quite well. Will try As and Cs next time.
By 4.30pm the wind got very light and then went off to the east, but we spotted two birds thermalling so I lobbed off and thermalled back up to 500 ATO and flew around, practising more top landings. I thought it was curtains for the day, but at 5pm it came back on and Felix and I flew for another 20 minutes.
So, to recap: rough thermals, sooth thermals, ridge lift then valley lift and it was flyable for about 5 hours in total. The day had it all!
Sunday, 15th February 2009
Geoff writes: a very cloudy day (and surprisingly cold), but no rain forecast. We started off at Puig d’Afrou with Roger and Erwan. It was scratchy, I managed just 20 minutes, Judith decided to drive down, to save the long retrieve of the vehicle. We then went to Santa Brigida, which was much busier than usual, it was the Aplec – a festival – so lots of pilots there. Again, it was a bit scratchy, though not too many pilots at once in the air, since there was also a barbecue on top. We both flew a few times. Most I got was about 250′ ATO. But a pleasant enough day.