From Germany to Slovenia

We left Neufchateau on Monday pm and headed North in search of good weather and a flying site. Not even out of Neufchateau and we spot an Ozone glider flying over our heads! Later we picked up two guys who had flown from Fumay and were not having much luck hitching back. They took us straight to the site and John set up and had a fly. We went to the campsite only to find it closed at 7 and we couldn't get in. Camped on the car park.

Tuesday was spent parawaiting wind very light on take off then it went the wrong direction anyway. Spent the night IN the campsite.

Wednesday was forecast to be bad weather so we travelled through Luxembourg to Germany. We are staying in a campsite near Dahn and it's in a pine forest with the most amazing sandstone rock formations. We ate at the restaurant which had a Greek theme, but the food was excellent.

Thursday am we went for an early (well early for us) walk in the forest. We have been able to get online to look at the weather, doesn't look great anywhere, so we will keep travelling...
Found a campsite in Germany and we set up and cooked and had a few drinks.

Friday we travelled to see the guys in Austria got there about 4pm and they had had a task, hooray!

Saturday woke up to not great weather so the guys went up to take off only to be sitting in cloud, whilst John whipped my ass at crazy golf (doh!) Well the sun came out and then we saw every one flying in to the goal field, but no task :-( And then the heavens opened!

Sunday drove to Slovenia. We went over this mountain and the van was in first gear most the way up and most the way down. It really wasn't pleasant, so we took the motorway after that. Got to Kobraid at about 9pm and had some food and a couple beers.

Monday woke up to a thunderstorm, but now it's sunny, but a little windy. There is a possibility of some flying tomorrow.

Flying in Beauraing, Belgium

Sunday 23rd May. We drove to about an hour to a ridge about 170m high. The take off was a small clearing in the trees. I eventually got the courage to take off only to get my glove trapped in my brake line. I quickly assessed whether it was going to impede my flight as the glider was above me and really wanted to take off. It wasn't, so I did. In the air I just took my glove off (it was still tightly caught in the line but held on to it the rest of the flight. Luckily it was so warm I didn't get a cold hand. :-)

The rigde was quite long and I had a very nice flight. Probably the longest so far on the Artik 2. Picture of John not being able to land (again) and the campervan in the background.

Got back to the campsite and had a couple of beers...

John's blog http://john-ellison.blogspot.com

Saturday 22nd May 2010

Bad hangover :-( Didn't get up early.. John cycled into town to get some food and made a lovely ham and rocket sandwich :-) Did some Subaru work, just need to get online to send it over to them. Going out for pizza tonight and hopefully not too many nice beers ;-)

Friday 21st May 2010

Got up at 4:20am to catch the 8:15am ferry. John drove most the way and we found a half finished campsite in Belgium. We have the whole place to ourselves! We cycled in to Neufchateau to get some money and stopped for a small beer. Cooked omlette for dinner and had to open the Champagne to celebrate our first night away. Went to the bar at the busy campsite not to far away and sampled a few more very nice beers, before staggering back and finishing off the Jack Daniels...

From Wind and Rain to Brilliant Sunshine

I would tell you how great the BP Cup was at the Long Mynd but unfortunately it did't work out that great for me. I probably landed very close to where I took off which doesn't really work in a comp. Never mind maybe I'll do better at the next round.

The camper van was still in Madrid just as I left it. I spent the night there again was woken by the sound of diggers, construction workers and the like from the field next door. Decided to make my way to Ager and if I found a campsite on the way I would stop over. Didn't think there was a rush as it was looking windy anyway. As it was I didn't find a campsite on the way so at about 8pm got to Ager and found the campsite.

Friday 24th was too windy to fly so I went out on my bike and swam in the pool. Saturday 25th I had two flights :-) Both quite short but very enjoyable all the same. The first flight I had a little collapse and didn't think much of it but my hands were a little shakey for a minute. Flew in the evening it was very smooth but not a lot of lift. Today had a flight and I managed to find a thermal and stayed in it. Hooray at last I can do it! Took some photos too.



Had a flight on Sunday 25th again wasn't a long one but I did get a nice thermal from the lower ridge and worked it back up to take off height. In the afternoon went with Nicky and Mark for a swim in the Lake that you can see in the photo above.

Piedrahita, Spain. 27th June - 13th July

All I can say is that I didn't come last in the British Open competition in Spain. It was close though. Never mind I should only get better :-) My first day was my best day, flying 27.8k. I landed(not very gracefully) a short distance to the road where I found a bar to wait for a retreive. I didn't fly the second task and the third I didn't make it over the pass. The forth and final task I felt ill so didn't was to take off and risk throwing up in the air and not being able to get down.

The Saturday night was I bit of the the party and came out of the bar and it was light outside! Needless to say I didn't fly that day. The day after I flew, it was just a little further on than the first flight, mind you I was flying 71 kph downwind. Suppose I shouldn't be disappointed about it as it was my second longest flight ever.

I flew the next day but wasn't happy about being thrashed around by the thermals, so landed in the smallest field I could find surrounded by trees and power lines! The flight the next day I borrowed a flight deck so I could take some ballast. Unfortunately I sort of took off but then came crashing down on my knee. It's alright now just a bit bruised.

Looking forward to the Long Mynd round. Hopefully I can take some of this Spanish weather back with me. :-)

SIV in Annecy 22nd - 25th June 2009

The SIV course with Jocky was excellent, even if we did have to get up at the crack of dawn to drive up to take off. I have to thank Scottish Sean for keeping me laughing when I sometimes felt like crying! I will never forget when just before doing symmetric tucks, Sean said it he would think it was like pulling his wife's knickers down.

Another memorable moment would be landing in the bullrushes at the end of the lake. For some unknown reason I couldn't make it to the landing field so had no real option apart from the bullrushes. I landed alright and managed to gather everything up. It was very difficult to find a way out as it was surrounded by trees and bushes. At one point I contemplated getting in the lake and walking round to the campsite but though better of it. Eventually I found a path and I walked across a little stream and felt a snag, I looked round only thinking I'd caught a line on something to find my reserve all strung out behind me. F**k! Well I couldn't carry everything so I unclipped the glider and carried on walking until I found somewhere that I could pack up. Once I was packed up it still took me another twenty minutes to get out. Needless to say I missed my second flight that day but I have got a repacked reserve. :-)

The spiral dives where the most exciting for me as I managed to scream so loud that even Jocky heard me from the boat. :-o It was great to watch the video at de-brief so you could see that what you did looked nothing near as bad as it felt in the air. If I do another SIV I would consider going to Turkey again as you have a lot more height and there are no bullrushes to land in.