September 2010
Monthly Archive
Friday, 3rd September 2010 (UK)
Geoff 03 Sep 2010 | : Archery, Trying, but failing, to fly
Geoff writes: the original plan was to go to the Malverns again, assuming the forecast was still ok this morning. I woke up to a bit of cloud, and a not very stunning RASP, but eventually set out, though the sky was quickly getting worse. I drove a few miles south, and it got even worse – some quite big clouds, almost no sun, and worse further south, and over to the west. In the end I canned it and turned round. It was a lousy sky.
I have an increasingly bad feeling this was a terrible mistake! Within an hour or so, the sky had cleared, it was streeting, and looked an epic day. At the time of writing this post, 8.00pm, nothing yet is posted in the league. That either means no-one went XC, or at least didn’t do anything worth posting; or, much more likely I think, everyone went a long way and they aren’t back yet. This could well be the third 100km day in five days.
Still, I did do some shooting at the archery field….. not very accurately, since I was too busy looking at the streets above me, even at 5.30 pm.
Thursday, 2nd September 2010 (France)
Judith 03 Sep 2010 | : Competitions, Flying, France
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.
Wednesday, 1st September 2010 (France)
Geoff 03 Sep 2010 | : Competitions
[posted for Judith]
I woke up still feeling heach-achy and groggy. By lunch time I was better, so decided to sit in the shade by the pool. After a while Martin D. came by and we had a nice chat and watched the leaders come into goal. It’s the perfect viewing spot, but I have to say I think the huge numbers of Ozone R.10s has spoilt the spectator sport potential of paragliding. When everyone was still on different wings you could tell the individual competitors. Now it’s just a sea of blue or red identical wings, and all the fun is in spotting the R.10 stragglers who arrive after serial wings and then try to land as far away from anyone else to try to hide their embarrassment.
Thursday, 2nd September 2010 (UK)
Geoff writes: having stayed overnight, I flew at the Malverns again. Kai decided to come down too. A bit windier, totally blue, and surprisingly rough, both on the ridge and over the back. Kai was the first to leave, in what looked like very weak stuff. After scrabbling around for a while, I got away, and managed Hereford – about 25km. Kai missed his goal, just, but still did over 90km! A brilliant flight on such a day. I always find blue days quite hard – so many possible sources and triggers – I never pick the right one!
Many thanks to Ian for the wonderful retrieve back to Kettle Sings. We owe you!
Wednesday, 1st September 2010 (UK)
Geoff writes: easterly forecast, so I decided to have a couple of days at the Malverns. I arrived a bit late, about 1.00, but no-one had flown by then anyway. There were cumulus around, just not at the Malverns. The wind was light,lift was weak. In the end, two or three people got away, and they probably had the best of the day, doing in the 30s. I got away later on, and only managed 15km. The lift was very weak, the cumulus were few and far between, and, in the end, I was just pleased to have got away.
Tuesday, 31st August 2010 (France)
Judith 01 Sep 2010 | : Competitions, Flying, France
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.