Day began with Andy engrossed in Bob Le’Eponge* on one of the five channels available on the TV in your team’s gite.
Once we had dragged him away from that, we did the – by now – routine of;
1. Attend 10.00 am briefing. A sweepstake is running on how long the meteo briefing will last. This is actually more of a variety performance in which the local CFI or deputy presents (at least) three conflicting weather forecasts. Everyone then does a Gallic shrug and says, “well, we’d better go fly anyway and see what happens.” No change there, then, just like home. Today Tim won the sweep with 19 minutes, closest to the 20-minute actual.
2. Prep gliders and position on 2nd row at launch point. On G’s advice, we avoid pole position – let the locals find out if it’s actually rubbish before we launch. (So far, it hasn’t been.) Disperse to (variously) early lunch, or swim, or more coffee, etc etc.
3. Re-convene for launch of premiere vague (that’s French) which today was Andy with Colin in 776, and Graham with G in 775. Start-of-convection and first launch was a bit later today; both gliders launched at around 1400, and flew for about 2 hours 15mins, working their way from the local hills and ridges, north and east to the mountains around Barcelonnette and the north end of the ridge system known as the parcour. Cloudbase over the highest peaks today was about 12,000 ft. Colin was particularly amused to see a Nimbus 4D gliding to Blayeul 2000 ft below ridge top height: they (Andy and Colin) later saw it speeding down the parcour on the way to Les Ecrins. The words, “French Team” were heard, along with an expression (can’t be repeated here) of, comment ca c’est dit?.....admiration for their nerve.
4. Land back, freshen up the instructors, change one set of P2s for the others, and send them off again. Tim/Colin set off at 1700 at which time the sky was still working well (goes on around here to at least 1930 or 2000) enabling them to head north-west to Pic de Bure, before running to the east to the same area visited by the first flights, then back to Sisteron. Nicki and G also went to Pic de Bure and some of the ridges beyond, but then ran back via the western ridges to Sisteron town for some sight-seeing of the Citadel before returning to the airfield.
5. Tidy away gliders and relax. Today, free beers (no, really) from Aeroclub de Sisteron on the club patio. Awesome (see below).
6. Fall over in heap and get ready to do it all again tomorrow.
We’ve had four flying days out of four to establish this pattern, with only the first Sunday clouding over and cutting things off after the first set of flights. Each day has provided more opportunities for Colin and G to show new Alpinists the basics of reading the local terrain and handling the complex mixture of thermal, ridge (and a bit of wave) lift. And sink, and more sink….but we won’t mention that. And then there’s the scenery. One of us (I will not say who) is given to saying, “Awesome”. He’s been saying it a lot.
PS Flarm (especially in its home environment) is really good.
PPS It’s hot.
PPPS Missed the Day of the Year So Far at Lasham on Sunday. Yeah, we know.
A bientot, Graham
* SpongeBob Square Pants. Try to keep up.
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