First Single Seater - Mike Lima

I'm now flying a single seater sailplane. It's an Astir and it's the most basic single-seater at my club, but even so it feels quite different from the two seaters I've been flying up to now. The controls are more responsive - when you move a pedal, the rudder moves immediately while on the ASK 21 it feels like a long line of elastic is slowly stretching before the rudder moves. It seems more pitch sensitive - a small change in pitch produces a bigger change in speed than I'm used to. Overall, it's more responsive and needs to be flown more accurately - even if the raw performance numbers like glide ratio aren't hugely different. 

It has very low wings, and this gives a lot of ground-effect when landing. You need a delicate touch to hold it just above the ground on the round-out and you use up quite a bit of runway. It's easy to find yourself climbing when you wanted to be touching down...

Dashboard with vario suspiciously stuck at 0.5 m/s

The dashboard is suitably basic but adequate except for the vario. Varios on sailplanes are more complicated than those used in paragliding; they are compensated to ignore altitude changes due to airspeed changes (you can easily climb 100 meters when slowing from cruising speed to circling speed). It's hard to get this compensation right on a mechanical vario and I'm less convinced by the Astir's vario than those on other sailplanes.  

As is common in 'learning' sailplanes, the vario makes no noise. Experienced sailplane pilots climb more 'by feel' rather than by using instruments. But my feel isn't good enough yet and I'd much rather have some beeps and keep my attention outside rather than to look at the dashboard every couple of seconds. Hopefully my feel will improve fairly quickly...

Flying Solo

Today was a strange day's flying - 6 flights using 2 different runways in increasing winds, but I had finished my day's flying before noon. It was all part of the (long) process in gaining sailplane qualifications - I'm now allowed to fly solo.  

I've spent yesterday and today doing a bunch of different things, mostly take-offs and landings. I've got to do some new things like a simulated cable breakage on tow, when the instructor releases the cable unexpectedly and you have to land the aircraft. 

We were turning round the flights so quickly I also got to take off without a 'wing-runner' (so, you start with a wing-tip on the ground and have to 'lift' it up with the control stick) and taking off directly from the grass (rather than the tarmac portions of the runway).  

All important entry in my fight log

Provided you can do all this consistently without terrifying the instructor, he authorizes you to fly solo and you then take your first solo flight. Generally, this takes place in the tandem you learned in; in my case, a club ASK 21. 

The solo flight was suitably uneventful. With the reduced weight, the sailplane takes off super quickly. In the air, it didn't feel any different (it seemed to turn just as well). I used the same landing speed but the round out seemed much more 'floaty' with the reduced weight.

I'm sure there will be moments when I miss the reassurance of having an expert sitting behind me, checking on what I'm doing, but right now I'm looking forward to some flying without a 'back seat driver'.

Sailplane Changes

Vinon airport, looking down runway 16

My sailplane flying has pretty much stalled and I decided that I needed a new club and instructor. It wasn't a very easy decision, but I already know it was absolutely the right one. I've recently joined a bigger club at Vinon; they've got lots of instructors and sailplanes and I can pretty much fly as much as I want.

Antoine prepares the WT9 Dynamic

There are a bunch of new things to adapt to, including the airport. It has three runways, separated into sailplane and powered aircraft sides. This morning I flew in a WT9 Dynamic lightweight aircraft (more info here) to practice landing patterns. The club is experimenting with it to tow up sailplanes. But it's also light enough to act as a sailplane for learning purposes (e.g. practicing 'landing out'). 

Lots to read as the engine warms up
(oil temp is only 16C)

So I was able to do three touch and goes in about 15 minutes. The chief pilot, Antoine, operated the throttle and commented the patterns while I worried about the other stuff. It's the first time I've 'flown' a powered aircraft and the differences with a sailplane were very interesting. No adverse yaw (so no need to use the rudder when turning). The control stick felt very direct. Three wheels rather than one, so very different on the ground. A lot more dials, displays and switches. But it didn't feel that different in the air either... 

Chilly Flying

Le Cousson from my landing spot at Mallemoisson

It was cold and somewhat cloudy, but the flying forecast was good so I headed up to launch. The wind was from the E (actually ESE), an unusual direction for St Andre, and although it wasn't very strong it gave a choice between flying locally or a 'downwind dash' towards Digne. I knew my glove batteries would run out after 2 hours, so whatever I did the flight wouldn't be very long.

Recovery drink in Digne

Conditions were excellent. Up at cloud base it's always hard to gauge the size of clouds you're flying under and I spent quite a bit of the time on full-bar and even using big-ears to stay out of 'the white room'. I crossed over the Mouchon and the Montagne de Coupe pretty quickly and headed onto Le Cousson (a mountain above Digne). Here I was hoping for some convergence as I hit the valley wind in the Bleone. But I got the opposite - mega-sink - and of course a head-wind.

I arrived low on Le Cousson but climbed back up again easily enough. I had a few choices now - head N up the Bleone valley and try to get onto Blayeil, head W over the valley onto la Bigue, land in Digne or try heading down the valley to my sail-plane club at St. Auban. 

The last was the least logical decision because if I got low I'd be flying against a strong valley wind. But if I could stay at cloud-base the wind would be ok. And my glove batteries would run out soon anyway, so whatever I did I wouldn't be flying much longer. 

Things started fine and after a couple of climbs my destination seemed, in the absence of wind, at a reasonable glide angle. But I flew under a couple of promising clouds that didn't deliver. And I was out of the mountains, so cloud base was lower and I soon found myself in the valley wind. I had one low save, but drifted so much with the wind it didn't help much. When I saw my glide ratio stuck at 0.6 for what felt like five minutes I knew it was over. I turned round and flew with the valley wind to make the retrieve easier and landed at Mallemoisson. A bus to Digne, a beer and then the train took me home to St Andre. 

About as much fun was you can have in two hours on a winter's day... Sorry, no in-flight photos, my camera froze up in the air...   



  

Greolieres Expedition

Launch is the bald spot in the center,
LZ the grassy field below

When you get a decent flying forecast on a winter Saturday, you'll be sure to find a bunch of eager Nice-based paraglider pilots at Greolieres. Nigel and I were a bit fed up with the cold flying in St Andre and decided to join them. It felt positively balmy on launch and Nigel and I watched pilots climb out easily before getting ready.

Up on the ridge

In fact, we were a little complacent. It was Nigel's first time at Greolieres and I had warned him about a couple of safety issues, but (given how easily everyone was getting up) I didn't bother giving him any tips for climbing out. Just as we were ready to take off, it clouded over. At this point, the smart thing to do was to wait for the sun to come back, but I went ahead and launched and Nigel followed me a few minutes later. 

Arriving over Coursegoules

Launch is only a couple of hundred meters above the LZ at Greolieres, so you don't want to lose a bunch of height straight off launch, but that's exactly what we did. We grovelled around for 5 or 10 minutes before the sun returned and - with sighs of relief - we got high. We flew for a couple of hours and both made the standard XC to Coursegoules and back.

Snowshoes

Looking over to Le Grand Coyer

We've finally had a decent dump of snow this winter. I waited patiently for a couple of days for the snow to stabilize before heading of to the medium mountains for a snowshoe hike. Blue skies, sun, snow, no wind and a big lunch on the summit - lovely! 

Eagles Locking Talons

In winter at St Andre good flying days are normally very cold - things need to be pretty unstable to compensate for the winter sunshine. I must admit I don't feel quite as keen on flying such days as I was a few years ago. But today's forecast suggested decent flying at reasonable temperatures, so I decided to head up to launch.

I was later setting off than I should have been; when I arrived on launch Philippe had top-landed and Nigel was taking off. It was also a bit windier than I expected but still perfectly manageable. After a leisurely lunch I took to the air and had a very pleasant flight. There were a few weak thermals mixed in with some dynamic lift, as well as some convergence.

The snow that fell in mid-January has completely melted and it looks more like August than February. After flying for around an hour I was taking some pictures of three eagles in a thermal when two of them locked talons and plummeted from the sky; this can be a mating ritual or a way of males fighting (in a game of chicken). Ever since I've seen this video I'm a bit wary of eagles and I avoided them for the rest of the flight...

A few pics.