British Open Practice Day

I awoke just before noon, opened the curtains and found a big blue sky, little wind and some big clouds building. I went outside to find out when I could take the chairlift up to launch and was reading the signs when someone called my name. It was Willie Todd, someone I knew from my rock-climbing days in Scotland but I hadn’t seen for nearly 30 years (when MacEnroe was a promising tennis player…). Willie has been living in the Alps for a long time, working as a guide, but he also flies and was going up for a flight. Willie told me the lift closed at 1, so I rushed back for a quick breakfast then headed up the hill as some French families were coming back down for their lunch.

Launch is a big plateau on the side of a mountain – a ski-area in winter, and a pasture in summer. Today there were lots of wings but no wind and only occasional cycles. I found Willie and tried to catch up on the last 30 years. There didn’t seem to be any rush; few people were launching and only a few of them were staying up. Eventually we couldn’t deny there were quite a few wings above us; both paragliders and sail-planes were all well represented.

I choose my cycle carefully and got a nice thermal off launch. I rode it for over 4,500 feet; with no wind, I climbed out directly above launch. The day before a comp is always difficult; you want a decent flight but you don’t want to get back to base at midnight. It was tempting to head South to St. Andre but I didn’t want to sink out in an isolated valley and have an epic getting back. So I stayed inside the local valley system and had a nice flight, trying the high ridges and the fairly open (for the Alps) valley system.

There were some sizeable clouds around and the atmosphere had an ‘electric blue’ appearance, so I was reasonably cautious. But no worries - plenty of lift and nothing excessive. The wings were all well spread out and, once away from launch, I only thermalled once with a paraglider.

I flew ‘somewhat’ near sail-planes a few times and (though I’ve done it before) it was a little unnerving. Once I only detected a sail-plane heading towards me by its shadow. And a couple of times I thermalled up with a sail-plane, trying to keep track of it, and was a bit worried when I lost it; when these guys fly off, they disappear very quickly. A few weeks ago here, two sailplanes collided; there were no survivors, so paranoia / caution seemed well in order.

After two and a half hours I decided to land. After a shower I went through a fairly painful sign-in process for the competition. The USA has the reputation of being a lawyer’s paradise; but here I had to provide evidence of all sorts of insurance and, before flying tomorrow, I will be issued with a competitor’s photo-id card.

Tracklog - > http://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/250682

Photos -> http://picasaweb.google.com/DMMullin/Montclar15AugSelected#