27 June 2008

Day 1 - Task 1

Day 1 – Task 1 -132km


Start – Aspres sur Beuch
TP1 – Chateau de Charance
TP2 – Le Batie Neve
TP3 – Cote Dormillouse
TP4 – Matinon (north of Digne Les Bains)
Goal – Camping Laragne Monteglin

Have been chilling for the past few days....

The first task, first day and it was sunny – a pleasant change from Austria that’s for sure!

The task was 132km with 4 turnpoints and the goal back at Laragne and flying over some of the most inhospitable landing grounds that you would care to come across in the vicinity – turns out there were people landing in river beds and up mountains and poor Lauren landed in a tree! Luckily it was a small tree and his glider was unaffected and he only hand small bruises to his right shoulder thankfully – lets hope it doesn’t affect him from flying overly much.

2 Brits in Goal (Gary and Gordon). Malcolm and Carl were close. The rest of us were around he 100k mark. Bruce had a nightmare retrieve after landing in the middle of nowhere down a 4wheel drive track and arrived back at the campsite at around 11pm. There were only 7 in goal in total all from the first start gate. Scott Barrett won the day.

It would have been a good task if the clouds had been higher and the overdeveloped cloud hasn’t spread out the sunshine and put lots of people in shade – maybe a day more of luck rather than judgement?

Practice Day


I had a practice day the day before the task with wsw winds on Chabre launch which was a bit awkward for takeoff and a lot of people de-rigged and went back down the hill. A few of us eventually got off and had a lovely fly around with almost to the Ft a 10,000ft cloud base. Flew to the North of Laragne on the ridges to the West of Aspre and beyond and came back over the top of Aspre where the first task was and then onto the volcano and then tried to find sink to circle in to get down in time for the opening ceremony at 6pm. A lovely stress free flying day – ain’t that just what flying is about?

Opening Ceremony


The Official Site
2008 Chabre Hang Gliding Open - the Pre-Worlds
Other Bloggers
Oz Report
Weather and Stuff - links from the Oz Report
Laragne WIND
Laragne SATELLITES
Laragne WEATHER FORECAST

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