November 2010
Monthly Archive
Friday, 5th November 2010
We put out a message on the forum last night to see if anyone fancied going somewhere different today, but after some discussion, Sant Pere de Rodes was ruled out and Oriol, Marc and Nani decided to go to Santa Brigida. We had to deal with some work stuff first, including an impromptu team meeting, so we were late out.
Since we were going to Santa Brigida, I decided to test fly the Axis Vega III that Nicky has lent me. On the way there the sky looked fantastic and Geoff was discussing how we would get back if we both went XC. On arrival, we found both Marc and Oriol in the bottom landing. They said that despite the cumulus, the cycles were well spaced out, there was hardly any wind and the thermals were weak. We went up anyway, taking Marc back up with us. Meanwhile Nani had launched and was maintaining, and getting above launch easily.
I got the Vega III out, fluffed a couple of launches and by this time the others (Enric, Marc and a bunch of Spanish guys I have never seen before) were getting really high. Geoff and I struggled for the first ten minutes until we got a strong thermal and that got us up and through the inversion. Once above, it was child’s play. You could cruise around and at one point I was racing Geoff out into the valley, checking my glide angle against his, and seeing how the glider performed with added speedbar. It was a glorious late afternoon and the thermals just got better, bigger and smoother. Really lovely to be in the air.
I really like the Vega III. It seems lighter than the Vega II. It certainly feels lighter on brake, so you need less muscle power to turn it smoothly. It’s also faster than my glider and glides better too (as evidenced by my landing much further forward on top landing than I would have done on my Vega II). My one and only negative observation was that it flaps a lot with big ears on and they take a big pump to get back out. Otherwise I was very happy on it.
Peter came out today and had his maiden flight at Santa Brigida. He flew really well.
Thursday, 4th November 2010
Judith 04 Nov 2010 | : Beach, Work
After Wayne went on Tuesday, I was knackered and slouched off to bed at 10pm and slept soundly until 8am the following morning. Ten hours is nearly unheard of for me and this meant I had a night’s sleep in hand. I went to bed last night and couldn’t sleep at all. So I got up and read the final 340 pages of Stieg Larson’s Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I eventually managed to nod off at 7.30am, after the sun had come up and was awake again from 9am, so I was a little exhausted today. It was another great flying day inland and it was too nice a day to stay indoors for a second day running. After finishing some work, I offered to drive for Geoff, not having the energy for much of a flight myself. We thought Sant Pere de Rodes would work, since the forecast Tramunatana wind was due to cease today and the wind was supposed to turn south in the centre of the day. He would fly and then we would go to the beach for an ice cream and bum around.
Far from dropping, the wind stayed strong north and we switched our radio to the FFVL balise on top of the mountain only to be told it was blowing 24 – 45km/h from the north. We forgot the flying and just went to the beach in Roses instead. I had intended to have a snooze after our picnic, but I got so hot that I went for a swim instead. It was cold getting in, but lovely once you were swimming. It certainly woke me up. The temperature was supposed to be 24C, but a pub thermometer was showing 32C in the sun at 4pm, so pretty hot. Very relaxing day in the end, despite not getting that beach siesta.
Geoff writes: a beautiful day on the beach, and very relaxing, after a morning’s work. We were thinking of packing up and going for a walk, when two people arrived at the beach, got out their deckchairs, and started sunbathing. Fair enough, but this is a beach some miles long and almost deserted (as you can see from the photos). But they sat within ten feet of us. Bizarre….
Wednesday, 3rd November 2010
Having been out to play for three days, we urgently needed to catch up with conference work, so we had a progress meeting with the conference team this morning and then opened up the conference environment to the presenters. So some tinkering with the conference platform, making presenter requested changes, etc. had us indoors all day, despite the hot and sunny weather. It clouded over a little in the afternoon when I went out to to the weekly shop, but we missed a really good flying day. Got to work sometime!
Tuesday, 2nd November 2010
Geoff writes: a classic Santa Brigida day, and a nice end to Wayne’s holiday. Strong Tramuntana forecast, so the only place likely to work was Santa Brigida. Loads of big wave in the sky as we set off (and in fact when we arrived) but in the air it was ok. The first flights were a bit lumpy, the thermals were only just starting to form. So we top landed, and had some lunch. Marc turned up, launched, and we followed him. Smoother, liftier, easy to get high and push out into the valley. Another Marc arrived, Marc from Ribes, who we hadn’t seen since last year, and he also flew.
Towards the end of the day, the thermals started to die off, and it switched to mostly dynamic, ridge, lift.
So a great day, followed by a quick sandwich, before dropping Wayne off at the airport. Good forecast for the rest of the week, though we have a fair amount of work to do.
Monday, 1st November 2010
It’s All Saints, so a public holiday here. We went out flying and took our friend Debbi along. The forecast was a little inconclusive, so we waited until the 11.30am update, which confirmed that we should go to Santa Brigida. As we got there is was sunny with only a few clouds, but as we were getting ready the sky started to cloud over. Wayne was off first while it was still thermic, but said it was bumpy. I launched and found it lumpy, and with less sun, not as lifty.
After that, the sky looked different in every direction you looked – some wave, alto cumulus, stratos, etc. there were two layers of cloud moving in opposite directions, which made the sky change fast and made for lots of interesting patterns.
Dominique from Niviuk came out for a fly on his ultralight gear (the whole lot just 4.5kg), and we had a chance to catch up on news. He flew down while we had a picnic, but then it started spitting, so we packed up and took Debbi home. I wasn’t feeling very well, but Wayne has never stood on a volcano before, so we took him up Montsacopa, one of the many overlooking Olot. It has a church on it and the views from all sides are nice. We even got to see a full rainbow over the mountains and the a spectacular sunset to finish the day. Shame my camera doesn’t do sunsets very well.