PWC St Andre

The Paragliding World Cup visited St Andre for a week's competition in September - the biggest competition we've had here since the European's 4 years ago. Conditions were rather poor and only three tasks got scored. I went up to launch to watch the start of one task; an afternoon storm was predicted so a short task was set. Everyone hurried into the air and the task was started, but the storm won the day and the task was cancelled.

Some pics I took plus some info on the PWC site - results and pics from the action.

Sainte-Victoire Hike

My wife and I had a break in Aix-en-Provence for a few days with one of her relatives. I took the opportunity to go for a hike on Sainte-Victoire for one of the days.

Sainte-Victoire is a famous mountain just outside Aix. It's an escarpement - the north slopes are gentle but the south face is a series of limestone cliffs. It was a favorite subject of Paul Cezanne's paintings.

This really isn't a good time for hiking in the area - it's too hot. Today was forecast to be 35 degrees (95 in old money). The most interesting hikes are on the south side, but I did one that climbed up the north side and set off early to minimize discomfort. The hike was hot but bearable; the landscape (limestone cliffs and plateau) was very interesting.

Some pics
  

Lima Charlie - my coolest ride so far!

I got to fly a Pegase sailplane today and it was very nice. It's a single-seater and, while it's not exactly a high perf beast, it's definitely more than a training 'mule'. 

Thin wings and retractable undercarriage reduce drag and increase performance. It flies very nicely in the air; the controls are light and direct. There seems to be less need to use the rudder to keep it flying symmetrically in a thermal than with other gliders I've flown. It was also very comfortable, with decent storage for water, food, camera etc (very unusual for a sailplane). I also liked having a beeping vario!

I had a nice flight of just under 4 hours, flying a nice little 100 km triangle. The sky was blue when I took off and I struggled for 15 minutes or so to gain altitude. But from then on there were some clouds and things got easier. Even better, I landed on runway 10 for the first time and it was quite a nice landing (at least, by my not very exacting standards...).

Some pics and explanations.

The Plateau of Valensole

I drive across the Plateau de Valensole to get to my sailplane club; it's a stunningly beautiful place. It's flat and open but the Alps (well, the Prealps) start right beside it. Wheat, almonds, olives and sunflowers are all grown there, but it is most famous for the lavender (strictly speaking it's lavendin, a commercial varient of lavender). 

It blooms in the summer months and has pretty much reached its peak. Especially in the evening, the scent of lavender and buzz of bees seems to be everywhere (lavender honey is excellent). The tourist season is also at its peak also and they all seem to want one thing - the perfect picture of them strolling in the lavender fields. You frequently see Asian couples dressed as for their wedding out in the fields.

One thing that is striking is how open it all is. None of the fields are fenced in, there are no 'No Trespassing' signs and I've never seen anyone get annoyed with the tourists. This is quite a contrast to what you'd expect to find in the States and it reflects very well on the locals.

A few pics.

Flying Over the Plateau de Valensole

Valensole and lavender fields

For the last 6 years or so I've been flying my paraglider in the mountains. But my new sailplane club is situated in pretty flat terrain (it's about 40 km to the mountains) and I find the lack of obvious lift sources a bit intimidating. Today started off blue all around the airfield (although cumulus clouds were visible in the distance) and that made things seem even worse. But I took off at the end of the pack and slowly built altitude as conditions improved. 

I flew over the Luberon for about an hour before coming back to the Plateau de Valensole. By then there were plenty of little clouds and the flying was pretty easy. I cruised around and took some pictures before landing back at the airfield for a flight of just over 3 hours.

Some pics

Old Renaults

In addition to the normal St Andre market, we had a 'brocantes' (somewhere between antiques and junk) market today. The thing that got the most attention was a little exhibition in the main street of a couple of old, lovingly restored, Renault cars. 

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...