Chalvet Open - Practice/Training week

I arrived at Saint-André-les-Alpes, France on Sunday evening

View Larger Map
– had a bit of a run-in with the bloke at the campsite on Monday when I turned up to pitch base. Unfortunately he wanted all PG’s and HG’s to camp together (in a not so great part of the campsite); I thought I’d understood where he wanted me but he wanted me to move – this whole experience left a bad taste (I wanted to be welcome there) so I de-camped to the smaller and I have to say MUCH nicer campsite just out of town. I know it’s not as convenient for briefings but I like it here - Doris arrives on Saturday and will be happy, I am sure.
So we are now camping at Camping de L'Issole not Camping Les Iscles

We had a lovely day flying yesterday. Base upto 8000' and nice climbs be it a little rough at times but that's St A;-) Very light wind which makes a change.



THIS COULD BE THE LAST BLOG - There is no Internet at the campsite so this could be the last blog for the duration of the comp. Hopefully the Comp Website will be up to date with news and results so you can follow HERE
Other bloggers could be:
Jochen
Jamie
Phippsy

Chalvet Open

Book your place now for the Chalvet Open : 21-27 August 2011, St Andre les Alpes - see you there! Just checked the PILOT LIST and it's looking like it's going to be one of the biggest hang gliding comps this year with around 90 entries..... Phil our scorer tells me he's booked his week in rehab!

The comp includes the French and British Nationals. As well as Class 1 there will also be a comp for Club [Sport] Class and Rigid Class 5. Talk at The Worlds was that the Rigid Pilots are hoping to do 200+km flights (weather allowing) but aren't we all.

We apparently have the whole launch area 'booked' and the whole mountain to ourselves (ie no PG) during the taskable time.

The waypoints list is now available to download from HERE

The Worlds - Day 11

………… so that’s the end of The Worlds

Today was also cancelled which means The Worlds was won with only 2 tasks.

Congratulations to Alex Ploner new World Champion
Photo taken by Flavio

A few Thank You's
- to the organisers and helpers of the competition; if only better weather could have been pre-booked it would have been perfect.
- to Team GB Manager, Pete and also to Trudy for the retrieve :-)
- to Team GB Sponsor and also my personal sponsors Aeratech, Doris and her Dad, John Drury

I start the long drive home early tomorrow morning.

The Worlds - Day 10

Right! I want to know who nicked me mojo?! It disappeared last year and whoever has it please can I have it back. You can just leave it where I can find it and I won't say anything. If you can leave a bit of joojoo too that would be great:-)


No surprise that today was Cancelled – It’s looking like a 2-day worlds! Bummer…………….

A few people/teams have now thrown in the towel and are on their way back home. Can't blame them at all. There is not much you can do in the rain and we have increased the local tourism economy 5 fold already.

Lollipop is missing her bra - The Tip Bag Story

A strange thing happened on the hill yesterday: I thought it strange that the storage bag inside my harness had open itself & ejected my batten bag. I put it all away & thought nothing more of it …… until I landed & Lollipop needed her tip bags – they were missing? Then it all made sense! Thieving bas****s! Give her her tip bags back – have you any idea how hard it is to fold a curvy tip glider without them? Obviously you do!

That is all, thank you.

The Worlds - Day 9

Raining again!!!!!!!!

Task cancelled. I think GB Team Leader, Pete sums the day up perfectly:-

“The day starts with some sunshine but a very low cloudbase and rain forecast for this afternoon. The order was to go to take off and await the pilot briefing at 11:30, by 10:00 we have 100% cloud cover but there are still some cue's forming so maybe some hope. 11:25 I get a sneaky look at the task board, 84k race, 11:30 the board is shown to the pilots, 11:35 the task is cancelled. 90% of the pilots free fly with several showing off their flying skills, unfortunately one German pilot pushed his glider too far and had to throw his reserve, the pilot is ok but I think that his glider is history. The first of the rain hits us at about 13:30, team GB are all landed with gliders in bags before it gets too bad. Forecast is not looking great, just hope that they are wrong, we need tasks, 4th is not a good place to be”

Tomorrow is looking like rain too so Friday will be our last chance.

Last night: Tyler had fun in the bubbles..........
.... and so did Wolfie

The Worlds - Day 8

I reckon some people must have drunk the weather better last night? We got to fly today.

Task 2 - 114km run up and down the valley and then back to the Sigillo goal field.

I had a fantastic start but it was the rain at the last TP which decked me. “If only” I had flown straight across the valley with Dave at TP 2 and not along the ridge I would have dodged it but 2.5km from the last TP the heavens opened (I mean they really opened) and I made the conscious decision not to fly in the rain mainly because I couldn’t see where I was going so found myself a nice big field.

Congrats to my fellow Brits who were in goal :-)

It was really nice to see Tullio here today, it's such a shame that politics saw him loose his place on the Italian team.


Jamie’s Task 2 photos – HERE

The Worlds - The Power of the Bag

This letter was handed out to Team Leaders at this morning's briefing.

The Worlds - Wills Wing Party

THANKS for a great party last night



Amazing food and so much of it! Shame the top guys from WW could not have been there. WW I salute you and thank you for a lovely evening.

The Worlds - Day 7

The depression is setting in now and I can’t see a way out! To make the comp valid there needs to be another task of 600 points - the forecast is sh1t for tomorrow and sh1t for the next day and looking sh1t for the days after that so it's not looking hopeful. There is talk about using the prizegiving day a flying day if it looks taskable which can be done within the rules but there are plenty of people who have their home travel arrangements booked for this day so you can imagine the tension on this one.


So back to today ..... Even though the day looked like this .......

.....we were told to go to the Cucco North launch (but not to rigg) for an 11am briefing. No surprise that the day was cancelled, eh?

Fabien keeping warm