March 2009
Monthly Archive
Tuesday, 17th March 2009
Geoff writes: for some time, we have consistently failed to fly Berga, usually by picking days when it was too windy or the wrong direction. Today, with Nicky Moss and Mark Graham, we finally managed it, and had an exceptionally good day. We launched from Segunda Maria, me being the last of us to launch. I climbed out after a few minutes and got a couple of thousand feet ATO, and dropped onto the spineback ridge behind – that height took me to about level with it, so it’s a lot higher than launch. Behind that is a valley, then another ridge – or maybe mountain – again a lot higher than the second ridge. I climbed another thousand feet, and could have dropped on to the third ridge, but was worried about getting back to the front – it would have been some kilometres – and having to land in the valley between the second and third ridges, which would have meant a long retrieve. So I went back to launch, and a little in front and finally bottom landed to join the other three.
We went for a sandwich, then drove up again, and I flew the new Artik 2, which Xiliu has given us for a few days. It was early evening, and pretty smooth, though still some small thermals, so not a full test of the glider, but it seemed very nice with much better penetration and glide than the Hook, and very easy to thermal. It wasn’t twitchy at all, but then the air was quite smooth. I’ll fly it again in more thermic conditions in the next day or two.
A great day out.
Judith writes: Nicky was first off and Mark launched second. It was very cyclic and they got into a sink cycle, which they fought out and then got high. I launched as they were thermalling out. I climbed 200 feet straight after launch without turning, but then hit something and had a huge blowout. About 70% of the wing went, it popped out with a huge bang and then the other side collapsed a little and then it was all fine again. We were watching Jocky Sanderson’s Performance Flying DVD last night and I just thought: stay calm, keep it smooth and concentrate on the positive. The wing handled it fine – I dropped a bit, but didn’t turn. So I kept flying, although I did look for a smoother thermal. I got to 1300′ ATO between launch and the ridge behind, but then headed back to the front through big sink. I thermalled around the front of the ridge for a while, but then went down. I took the opportunity of a grassy field to do some ground handling. As Geoff says, gorgeous evening flight and all with good company!
Monday, 16th March 2009
Judith 16 Mar 2009 | : Trying, but failing, to fly
It was windy today, so we headed out to La Cellera to return Roger’s phone which Geoff accidentally took away with him yesterday. As it wasn’t flyable we went to Can Co, a restaurant owned by Sergi, paraglider pilot and president of the Puig d’Afrou club. I got my free lunch for winning the PG world championship sweepstake and we had some cava-type beer, double fermented, which was actually really nice and which went surprisingly well with fish.
Afterwards the three of us set off to Santa Brigida to clear up after the Chilean (the one who crashed into a tree yesterday, decided to leave his glider there and fly back today to Chile). It was stuck up a high tree and Roger and Geoff had to climb up the dead limbs (some of which were breaking as they stepped on them) to get to the canopy. It was a crappy old thing. 10 years old and looked so worn that you wouldn’t use it for ground handling, never mind getting into the air with it. (According to the Niviuk guys, the poor state of the glider, and its porosity, were the main reason he spun it into the trees, rather than only bad piloting). It was in such an awkward place that we had to cut the lines to get the sail out and before chucking it into the nearest bin. The glider was damaged as we got it out, and we put a few more cuts into it in case anyone saw it in the bin and thought it was safe to fly!
Catalunya (the part where we live) is a really nice part of Spain, and has mostly avoided a lot of the trashing and over development other parts of Spain suffer from. It’s a real shame when pilots come from somewhere else and just dump unwanted stuff here, for others to clear up.
It was still howling at 4pm, so we decided just to can the day and went home to do jobs.
Sunday, 15th March 2009
Geoff writes: an interesting day. Hot and sunny, flyable all day. We started off at Puig d’Afrou, where our friends Marieka and Joop were having tandem flights. Marieka really enjoyed her flight with Dominique. We were there with Nicky Moss and Mark Graham. I flew, it was very thermic, lift everywhere, but a bit bouncy. In the end I went and landed. Nicky launched as I landed, and flew to near Santa Brigida. Judith, who was not feeling well, drove down with Mark.
It was quite windy – hence the roughness – and one of our friends managed to land on a couple of houses in La Cellera. He is perfectly fine, his glider less so. The residents were watching TV, but seeing a glider appear outside their second floor window was a lot more interesting.
We then went to Santa Brigida (after disentangling the glider from the two roofs), and flew for the rest of the day. Judith did fly then, and tried out the new Artik 2 (we have it for the rest of the week to play with – there are some advantages to flying every day with the Niviuk owners!). Very lifty, a bit bouncy, but good fun. A visiting Chilean pilot managed to land in the trees and then, somewhat bizarrely, decided just to leave his glider there and fly back to Chile. Littering on a grand scale. We will have to go up and get it out of the trees soon – a bit inconsiderate of him, to say the least.
Lots of French pilots at Santa Brigida today – too windy in France.
And a good day at the Long Mynd apparently, with 60 or 70 pilots out, and lots of XCs done. We have a lot to catch up on in the League when we get back.
Saturday, 14th March 2009
The forecast for today was hot (26C), sunny and south. We were a bit slow off the mark this morning and were very lazy about making a decision where to go. In the end we decided to head to Santa Brigida. It was windy in Olot and stayed that way all the way to the site. When we got to the top Lluis was just taking off and Xevi was on launch. It seemed windy to me, but they seemed to be doing ok. After about 5 minutes the wind started picking up and there was no way I would/could have launched. Both opted to bottom land shortly after.
We found a spot in the quarry which was out of the wind and sunbathed and read our books until Erwan arrived and tested more prototype wings. By 4pm it had dropped and Geoff flew, followed by me and lots of others. It got a little chaotic at times in the air, but it was an enjoyable evening flight.
I am getting a bit frustrated with my lack of progress learning to launch the glider consistently, but I learned to use As and Cs today, which works much better. Just need to practice a bit more now.
Friday, 13th March 2009
Everyone was heading to the coast at Sant Pere de Rodes and who are we to disagree? We thought it might be a bit windy, but as usual the forecasters let us down. When we got there it was mega stable and very light winds. There were eight of us plus one passenger. All of us had straight or extended top-to-bottoms.
Nice sitting in the hot sun (23C) and topping up our tans. Now frantically trying to prepare for dinner tonight. Our farewell bash with the neighbours. I’m cooking for eleven.
Thursday, 12th March 2009
The weather was hot and sunny and lots of people arranged to go flying, some at Puig d’Afrou, some at El Mont and some at Ceret in France. We toyed with the idea of going too, but by 11am there was no cumulus, and it looked stable so we decided to have a day off and headed to the beach at Roses.
When we got there there was a cool northerly wind, so we found a nice sheltered bit and had a sandwich and a beer. I got really hot lying in the sunshine and the sea looked so tempting that I decided to go for the first swim of the year. It was cold, but once you were in it was fine.
We spent the day as beach bums and then went to see Rolf and Dolores. We got a demonstration of Rolf’s new Wingo model aircraft design. 170kmph when you point it at the ground, and it has some pretty cool acro moves too.
Wednesday, 11th March 2009
Judith 11 Mar 2009 | : Boring stuff
Yesterday I said that the forecast was good all week, but they forgot to mention today’s weak cold front until this morning. A very cloudy day here and it was too late to go skiing. We had a very productive working day.
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