Day 11 - Task 3 - 154km Triangle

All the Brits in goal today with Carl being the fastest and about 5th in. The rest of us were a tad slow to say the least. It was a 154km task round some amazing mountains and lakes with nice smooth glides and some very rough climbs low down.

There were a lot of guys that just missed the goal by metres including Jorg and some of the French team. It’s never nice to miss goal by so little and after 4 hours flying:-(

I must have turned into a “tree hugger” the amount of time I seem to find myself trying to get in them at 7000 feet! I think the reason for low down turbulence has something to do with all the rain we have had mixed in with the valley wind which makes for uneven heating? I don't know.

Tomorrow looks like it may be no good again. We will see. No pictures today due to a bit of a rush to get off launch as I have to rig near the back DHO!


RANDOM PICTURES FROM YESTERDAY........

Oleg and his batten 'bunnies'


Sergy from Aeros


Phippsy or Yeti?





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Click here - Official website of 16th FAI European Hang Gliding Championships

Day 10 - Cancelled

No task today but we did manage to free fly:-)

At base


Cloud still on the tops


Heading North


Looking East


We are near the end of the comp with only 2 tasks in the bag. Today could have been task-able late on but there is doubt that we could have got all the pilots off safe and in the air ready for a start so I think a good decision. It did start to rain again on the takeoff after they called it.

We had a good fly around, climbing on the south, gliding to the north side, heading west around 17k then coming back to the campsite for a beer. A pleasant punt round.

Forecast is good for tomorrow for a task. Not the grass! But it might rain later:-((

A month of rain in Laragne too I hear?



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Click here - Official website of 16th FAI European Hang Gliding Championships

Day 9 - Cancelled

No task today due to bad weather.....


Other Euro's bloggers:
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Click here - Official website of 16th FAI European Hang Gliding Championships

Day 8 - Cancelled

There is no task today due to bad weather - forecast for the rest of the week does not look good either.

I shall blog more later.....


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Day 7 - Task 2 - 100k

Task 100k - 3 turnpoints - flying away from the front - goal field approx 40k away.





The task was set to avoid the warm front with the new height limit but there was a mountain in the way at the start so we all ended up in a big pack trying to get round the corner below the 2200m limit. I must have knocked my camera at the take off so no flying pics today :-(

As I mentioned in my last post - we had 2 brits in goal, Phippsy almost made it but you can ask him why he didn't. Bruce was only 5k short and I had an unpleasant day and was 15k short : It was not at all nice too witness a tumble - My thoughts are with you.

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Day 7

At last - we’ve got our feet off the ground today.

Quite a hard task and for whatever reason I seemed to spend most of the time grovelling in the trees. We’ve got 2 brits aka the scousers in goal. I’ve landed 15km short, Bruce 5km and Phippsy is very close but I can’t confirm details yet.

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Day 6 - Cancelled

Other Euro's bloggers:
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Click here - Official website of 16th FAI European Hang Gliding Championships

Singin' in the Rain

I'm trying very hard to keep a smile on my face :-)

Day 5 - Cancelled ~ it snowed today!

All photos taken with Ricoh R8 – you can click any photo to make it BIGGER!




It rained all day today apart from on the tops of the mountains where it snowed!! 2.3'c on take-off according to the web cam! It might be a tad cold if we fly tomorrow and am sure glad I packed my winter flying gloves but no thermals:-)

A curry for ‘team’ tea tonight in the Brit Team apartment with, I am sure, a splash or two of wine along with entertainment from Shedsy!

The talk over the last couple of days has been about cloud flying and how to get a system in place to try and sort it out. This was discussed in Croatia 2 years ago which was one of the worst experiences of my life and nearly made me give up on hang gliding and now it raises is head again after it seems no one has made any gains on trying to sort it.

We have had a printout of heights and from it, it is clear there are pilots that are so "weak and insecure" they need to fly in cloud to gain the advantage – these are not my words but taken from the pilot meeting this morning. Lets hope the meeting comes out with some positive results. We find out soon;-)

Icarus - no chance of him getting too close to the sun any time soon


My room mate




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Day 4 - Cancelled

No flying today due to a front sat above us and sounds like it will be the same tomorrow.



We had a great night last night eating in with a bean chilli and rice made by one of our drivers Cathy, followed by strawberries and cream/yogurt washed down by nearly 6 litres of red wine - the head is paying the price today let me tell you!!





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Day 3 - Cancelled

All photos taken with Ricoh R8 – you can click any photo to make it BIGGER!
- had the camera on 45secs delay today so not many pics.


looking east from take off


A good call by the safety and comp organisers - we flew down to the bottom landing before the weather turned nasty as cunim's were on the menu for today's lunch. By the time we had had a beer and just finished de rigging the gust front had come through and by the time we got the gliders back to the digs and on the racks in the dry the rain. thunder and lightening had started.

The organisation is very good and they are playing very safe which I think most pilots seem to be appreciating very much.

Sounds like there are a few people un-happy about people cloud flying. Maybe the answer or a good idea would be to make all track logs public so in effect it might police itself? The Brits of course can not comment on this subject as we may have our knackers chopped off ;-)

looking over the back of take off


mountains ahead




Phippsy




big cloud building at the end of the valley


cunim


it's coming


Kaz and Phippsy




Shedsy always the comedien



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Day 2 - Task 1 - stopped

All photos taken with Ricoh R8 – you can click any photo to make it BIGGER!

Task - 105.3km / 5 turnpoints - stopped due to thunderstorms. 'Think' Gerolf won the day?

Climbing out at Launch


Glide to first turnpoint


Chilly at base


Ad a fun time today although the launch was manic to say the least with priority set-up pilots also getting priority launch which I think is in the rules as NOT to happen?

Anyway, we had a good day with 4 out of 5 in goal so a good start. The task was stopped late afternoon after most were in goal due to thunderstorms, which we now have (more rain).

I went down 15km from the second turnpoint (landing with 4 others, one of which was Oleg) after arriving from a glide over the valley at Greifenburg 200 feet below the ridge. The guys above got away again and after a lot got low but were able to scratch up in the trees.

Getting Low


Oleg 'trying' to smile :-)



Am pleased to say we did not need the ‘corks’ today!

I think this will be a safe comp which is reassuring.

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Day 1 - Cancelled

All photos taken with Ricoh R8 – you can click any photo to make it BIGGER!


First day of the comp and a task was set at 11am but cancelled by the safety committee at the 12noon re-brief. (Nice to know the competition is erring on the side of caution).

In between rain showers and tail wind most of the comp managed to get off the hill for a free flight.


Forecast for tomorrow looks better than today with Wednesday not looking so good - the conditions here seem to be very unpredictable!

Griefenburg from 6000ft asl

mean looking sky building



Click here - Official website of 16th FAI European Hang Gliding Championships

Opening Ceremony - 8 June

All photos taken with Ricoh R8 – you can click any photo to make it BIGGER!

written with a gyroscope powerball - we couldn't go fast enough to write 'team GB'

Team GB (L-R): Bruce, Carl, Rich, Shedsy, Phippys

in this picture are Cathy and Kaz our drivers for the comp

The trohpies are absolutly stunning and made of solid bronze