I headed to the landing zone around 10:30 to see about catching a ride up to launch. It was a beautiful blue sky day so I was hopeful for the day’s flying. I hung out near the shuttle area for only about 10 minutes when a couple of guys verbally advertised that they had one seat available in their car. I snagged it immediately. Max was from Marseille while the driver, Gus, was originally from New Zealand. Nice guys...and thanks for the lift.
There were a number of pilots on launch when we arrived, at least 40. Some students were taking off but there wasn’t enough development yet to warrant taking off. In the process of putting on my long johns, I busted the slider part of the zipper for one of my pants/shorts legs. Damn. I just left my other pair, the ones with the nasty ink stain, with Christophe as I had worn those throughout the replacement of the engine and figured he might want them to work in. I just had this pair and a pair of quick dry pants (which are my formal gear don’t you know). I spent 20 minutes trying in vain to fix them and in the end I broke out the duct tape to try and hold the right pant leg up. By the time I got my wing ready, everyone had taken off! No worries, the conditions still looked good. The wind was pretty strong for takeoff but I adjusted correctly and once the wing was inflated I took one step and was in the air.
On launch:
A future pilot:
The busy launch:
I headed south, towards the closer end of the ridge. I figured that the sun has been baking the south side and with the north wind there should be a convergence of lift. I was correct. I gained 300+ meters quickly. There was another PGer close by and he was more around the corner of the ridge, the side facing town. He was climbing faster than I was so I ventured over there...bad idea. He left before I got there and I found out why, big sink. I turned back to head around the corner to launch but got hammered with strong headwinds and I continued to go down. I eeked around the corner at launch height, having lost all that I had gained, but soon found more lift. I then found a boomer of a thermal and climbed 800 meters above the launch.
Earlier I had noticed that many gliders had headed north but now not as many were to be seen and they were all quite low so I decided to head east to a mountain with some antennas on it that I had flown around back in June. I arrived high enough to run up a spine but was wary of possible rotor (turbulent flow from the wind flowing over the top from the other side). Soon I found myself in one of the strongest, yet relatively stable, thermals I’ve ever been in. I saw 8 meters/second up on my vario for a brief second and sustained 7.4 m/s for at least 3 seconds...that’s an elevator into the sky! A cumulus cloud was forming above this column of rising air and I made sure that I was near the side of it as I rose to its base. I noticed a couple of sailplanes way below me but as I decided to head south to a long ridge that borders the east side of town the gliders were banking steeply and were already at my height...wow, I have to do that someday! (technically I’ve done one acrobatic flight in a sailplane...but I mean do it as a pastime).
In flight:
I lost a lot of height after cruising to the long ridge. There were 3 other paragliders struggling below me. I got half way to this tower on a bare mountaintop that I had hoped to ridge but it didn’t look like it was going to happen so I turned and headed for the landing zone next to the campsite. Sweet flight...shorter than expected but surprisingly lifty. With the 7.4 m/s up and gaining 1250 meters above launch...one can’t complain about September flying here!
Betty at the campsite
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