Last Flight of the Year

I spent the last few days in London as a tourist and got back to St Andre late on the 30th. This gave me time to get a last flight of the year; and it was a very simple, standard hike and fly. I landed in the normal St Andre LZ; the last few times I landed there, it was covered in snow. The snow has melted and I hadn't realized that this had left the LZ very, very muddy. By the time I walked off the LZ, my boots weighed about 5 Kgs each!

At this time of year, you always think back to the years flying (and the year generally). I no longer keep a careful log of my flights, but I posted 52 hours on Leonardo, so I'm going to guesstimate I had about 80 hours in total. I was a bit disappointed in how little flying I got in during the spring (due to work demands and poor conditions) but apart from that, I feel I've had a great year. Some fabulous flights without any incidents at all (no collapses, no bad launches, no bad landings, no dramas at all). In fact, landing in a muddy LZ was as bad as it got!

Let's hope for the same in 2011!

December Hike and Flies

I'm used to Oregon and over there the winter months just drag by. Gray skies and lots of rain make flying difficult and even hiking is hard work.

But the early part of the winter has flown by here and I can't believe it is Xmas already. There have been plenty of days of bad weather - mostly snow, sometimes rain. But here precipitation falls quickly and you seldom get a run of bad days. St Andre is just at the altitude where the snow can last for weeks or it can melt in a few days.

The result has been plenty of sunny days; normally with a lot of snow on the ground but right now it has almost all melted. I've had several hike and flies (and, of course, a few hikes too); I take my lightest gear and the hiking is a pleasure. There have been two general problems. First, the hiking can take a lot longer when the snow is difficult. Second, there are lots of days with light winds in the valleys and strong winds at or just above ridge height; unfortunately, you can seldom launch on the way up, so you have to choose your days carefully.

I'm using my electric gloves and they make such a difference, both in the hiking and flying. Today is Xmas and I managed to get in a quick hike and fly, using the W launch of Chalvet. Door to door, when the snow is easy, is a tad under 3 hours. The christmas duck is in the oven, I'm about to light the fire, the ski season has just started - not too bad! 

Pics of a sunny hike with a couple of nice churches, and an intended hike and fly where I set off too late to deal with all the snow.

Snowy Hike and Fly

Another very cold night with a big blue sky and snow in the morning. Light winds made a hike and fly the obvious choice and I considered a few peaks. For a bunch of reasons (mainly avalanche risk and not having that much time) I choose the normal S launch at St Andre and took my lightest flying gear and warmest clothes.

The hike up was beautiful, with the snow getting deeper all the way up. On the summit there was essentially no wind; the S launch is not at all steep and with the deep snow it wasn't obvious I could even get off. I made a couple of take-off 'trenches' in the snow and dug a little edge to stop my wing sliding down the hill. To make matters worse, I had my little speedwing and what little wind there was changed direction once I laid out.

Anyway, I just got off and had a very short flight down to the LZ. Despite this being my first sled ride at St Andre, I really enjoyed it!

A few pics

Sunshine and Snow

Most of this week has been beautiful; cold, lots of snow with a blue sky. I've been fairly busy and had a cold at the start of the week, so I didn't get out as much as I'd have liked. But I felt better today and had a very pleasant hike. Most of the paths had either no tracks on them or just animal tracks.

A few pics

Snow in St Andre

This weekend definitely feels like the start of the winter. Although there was already snow higher up the mountains, St Andre has stayed clear of the snow. But all that changed over the weekend.

Saturday looked as though a super-cold hike and fly might have been possible; the start of the day was cold and clear but with bad weather forecast to move in during the afternoon. However, things happened a little quicker than the forecast; as soon as the first clouds appeared it was clearly very windy at launch height. So I had a snowy hike in the Thorame valley. I used the hike to test some new gear. I now have electric gloves and they were very good - but only for the first 4 hours of the hike, by then the batteries were exhausted! I've also been breaking in some new boots, and it seemed a good occasion to give them a longer hike; they were fine, but my feet were happy to see the end of the hike. I saw a couple of boars and a fox; the fox played for about 5 minutes before he realized I was watching from about 400 meters away - then he run away very fast.

Overnight, a lot of snow fell on St Andre. I had a short tour on my XC skis, but my feet were a little painful from the day before, so I didn't stay out too long. I'm back in the warmth now, about to light a fire.

Pics of the hike and St Andre under the snow.

Hike without Fly

When my cleaner arrives, I try to get out to make things easier for her - hike, fly, cycle, whatever. I debated flying this Wednesday, but cloudbase, mountain tops and freezing level were all forecast to coincide. Then I thought about a hike and fly; but the predicted meteo wind wasn't really from the best direction for the hikes I fancied. So I decided to go for a hike that I could start from my front door.

The hike was very nice; it started in the mist. The mist burned off and I had a nice climb up to a ridge. Some very pleasant ridge walking, with the last bit over a dusting of snow. I ate my lunch on the peak, which was just flirting with the clouds. Afterwards, a gradual descent back to St Andre. While I was very happy with my day, I realized I should have taken my lightweight gear and flown down; even in November, the anabatic wind was overcoming the meteo wind pretty easily. No big deal, good data for next time.

And then I came back to a wonderfully clean house!

Pics

Armistice Day Flying

Twentieth century wars have made a big impact in France and today is a national holiday. The day dawned clear but cold in St Andre; there was ice everywhere. It would have been flyable here, but it looked just as flyable nearer the coast and a whole lot warmer. Unusually, I decided it was worth driving to go flying. Greolieres or Gourdon?

I stopped at Greolieres and found a bunch of Nice based pilots - all enjoying the national holiday - debating whether to fly there or at the Col de Bleyne. The group split and I joined the majority at the Col de Bleyne. From a warmth viewpoint, this was only a small improvement over St Andre (launch is essentially at the same altitude, even if it's a little nearer the Med).

I was really careful to keep my fingers warm on launch and launched near the front of a group of 12 or so pilots. Initially the wind was fairly strong from the East, but it changed (backed?, veered?) to the S and later the W. The thermals were amazing for November (7 m/s or 1400 ft/min) and it wasn't too hard to stay up; but base was low (2000m was as high as I got) so it was hard to make any real transitions. I wasn't surprised when my finders got cold and I decided to head to Greolieres, hoping to get a decent mini-XC out the day before having to land. I got too low to make the last transition and ended up landing. After warming my fingers and eating my lunch; I started walking back and got a lift from another pilot.

My electric gloves are in the States; I just need to get them through customs so I can fly in the cold weather!

Pics and Tracklog