Chalvet Open - Practice/Training week

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

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– 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

The Worlds - Day 6

Day Cancelled..........at the 11.30 Team Leader briefing

Woke up to 40-50 kph on take off with drizzle, grey sky and cool! All that I can think of is the jobs that need doing at home :-((

There is talk that we might get a fly tomorrow at Trepizi which is about 2hrs away.

Gordo checking out his radio problems


Team GB is splitting up tonight as Gary, Bruce and I head out to the Wills Wing Pilots evening :-) (Dave, Carl, Gordon & Grant are Moyes Boys and Tony is flying Aeros)

The Worlds - Day 5

It’s grey, its raining, its dark and did I just hear a rumble from Thor?

That’s the picture I woke up to this morning ………….. The day is cancelled and looks like there will be rain tomorrow too, in fact it isn’t looking great for the rest of the week ahead.

Yesterday was a pretty difficult task, seems Jonny was the only one to make goal from the second start - go Jonny.

Lots of talk this morning about airspace: Was somebody 3km into the airspace? With a few more into the edge of it? The zeros will tell.

Jamie (as always) was taking photos - Task 1 Photos by Jamie HERE Thanks Jamie :-)

Markus was tracking Task 1 and took some screen grabs – see more HERE


Dave at Goal!

The Worlds - Day 4

Task 1 - 120km – up and down the valley!

Take off was easy with a nice strong breeze and there were good strong climbs. I was expecting more in goal but the wind increased during the day and thwarted peoples plans, I guess…… mine included.

Congrats to Dave, Gary and Grant all in goal, should be high scoring day for the team.

I had a pretty pants day - everything was a rush today: the message to head to the Sebasioi launch got lost in translation (about 1hr drive away); we were late setting off and ended up getting lost going up the hill and then got lost again. We were following an ‘Italian’ car who we trusted would know the way but it turned out it was the Columbian team in an Italian rental and they were lost too! There is a lesson to be learnt from today :-) So we arrived up the hill and to say there was a panic to get rigged would be an understatement.

I think it’s fair to say OB has had a worse day than mine though. He took off to find his instrument had frozen; landed back on top and grabbed a back-up from the French team which then ejected itself out of the pod: he made goal but with no tracklog – bummer to say the least.



Follow the tasks as they happen (with a little delay) HERE

The Worlds - Day 3

Day 3 cancelled - it was too windy to fly and I feel personally was the right decision to cancel the day but there is much debate on whether it was the right decision or not. Read what Davis has to say about it OZ REPORT

The Worlds - Day 2

Day 2 cancelled - we 'might' get to fly tomorrow but I'm not sure what the odds are on it. Just to be prepared there will be NO alcohol involved tonight - I had enough of that last night at the Castle!


All teams were invited to a pilot dinner at the beautiful old building which has been converted to a hotel - I reckon our hosts had no idea how much alcohol would be consumed given the forecast for the next day was not good. Actually the organisation have done a cracking job so far with planned 'entertainment' arranged for most nights - tonight we have belly dancing and karaoke which happens to be taking place at my digs - if only I was drinking I would just be able to stumble back to my bed.

Jamie took some better pictures HERE

The belly dancers have arrived

The Worlds - Day 1

Day 1 is cancelled due to high winds - looks like we might not fly until Thursday now :-(

We had a few hours walking round the caves underneath Cucco which filled in a few hours of non flying even though the German team were flying at 13 grand in wave at a smaller site (Castelluccio) not too far away!!!!



Jamie took some better photos of the cave trip HERE

The Worlds .... so far

A few photos so far & from the Opening Ceremony which took place last night



- I will keep adding to these photos as the comp goes on :-) ... and as I get a better internet connection!

You can see Jamie's photos of the Opening Ceremony HERE and Gary's photos HERE

Will he or won't he fly?

So the controversy has started – those of you following Jamie’s blog will have read today’s post Helmets & Shoulderpads ………..

The hot news tonight is that Gerolf might not fly The Worlds due to the ‘helmet’ issue.

Hope the problems can be overcome – won’t be the same without him.

Practice Day

The forecast is not looking great for the next few days so today is perhaps the only practice day we will get before the comp starts on Tuesday.

The flying was very nice but a bit windy on take-off especially late on. Cloudbase was 7,000-7,900ft with nice climbs of around 500-700ftpm and it was very difficult to get down and land. I think we (us Brits) would have tried to set and fly a task (it would have been a lovely day for one for sure) BUT one of the Brits was transmitting constantly on the radio – the process of elimination as to who the culprit is continues ........ will we ever find out who has the dodgy radio?

Thanks Jamie for the photos - see more from the practice day HERE

WANTED

The start .... Sprog checks and one for Doris;-)

Let the sprog measuring begin - pretty happy to report that my Lollipop was spot on. Sweeeeeet!


Laurent - what?

I have to thank Jamie for this photo - you checking me out Davide?

Jeff and Zippy - signing their lives away - soooo much paperwork to complete

The good news for Doris is that we will all be flying with a tracker - which means not only can she see what I'm up to but so can everyone else: lots of debate on this one

Pretty simple to use - lets see how accurate they are

Ah the team that make is all possible - thanks guys


Thanks to:
Jamie - I nicked some of your photos ;-)

My sponsors:
http://www.aeratech.co.uk/

........and to Caroline (Doris) and John Drury :-)

Also thanks to the Team Sponsor: www.ciaruk.co.uk