France -1: (Mieussy) Allevard

On my way to Southern France I stopped first at Mieussey (the place, where paragliding 'began').
Unfortunately - according to the info received by a pilot, who had just landed - it was (too) turbulent, so I continued.

Mieussey

Next stop was at Allevard (just before Grenoble). I was lucky as shortly after my arrival the local school was driving to launch and they had one seat left in their car...

Lac d'Allevard

Unfortunately only a short flight was possible.

I continued along the Route Napoleon and found a nice place to stay near the Col de la Croix Haute.

Fiesch -3

Eggishorn

Another great day in Fiesch for those who wanted to fly far.
The wind situation had slightly improved (less east, but still north); flying at times was rather 'sporty'.
But as I didn't feel too well, I decided after 2 hours to head for the LZ...

Fiesch

LZ in Fiesch

PS: to yesterday's flight: even Michi Müller in the comment to his flight remarked, that he didn't like much the wind situation in the Goms yesterday.

Fiesch -2

Again a beautiful day here in Fiesch, correspondingly the number of pilots: I think even more than yesterday.
Luckily Fiesch offers enough different TO-places to accomodate such a number of pilots!

Unfortunately (contrary to yesterday) the wind situation had changed: east -wind, which made TO's a bit trickier and of course flying towards the 'Grimslepass' harder, especially below 3000m.

Münster aerodrome (sailplanes) at bottom center-right, looking east towards Grimselpass

LZ Ritzingen (Church)

As all indicators showed east (possibly increasing), I decided to land in Niederwald, as there the LZ is a bit closer to the railway station...

LZ Niederwald ( a top gallery/ tunnel)

Fiesch -1

Finally a few good looking days in a row. So I went to Fiesch, hoping to fly 3 (or even 4) days.

In the gondola I met Ennio, a good friend from Italy. 'Unfortunately' he is a hangie ;-:
but once in a while he paraglides as well (so actually he is biwingual). He wanted to fly 250k today, but I have not yet spoken to him after his flight.
It's a pity that we meet so rarely!

crossing towards Bellwald

Aletschglacier (left), Fiescherglacier (right)

near Bellalp, heading back towards Fiesch

I'm very happy with today's flight: good take-off; good landing (though a bit short) and the rest in between: just a big pleasure and fun.

My flight can be found here.

Arosa - lady slippers / golf / flight

Finally a summerday in Arosa!

It started of with a visit to the 'Isla' to search for and see the 'Lady Slipper' -orchids in full bloom...

 

...then a visit to the golf course: driving range and playing a few holes... 

Golf course

... and finally a flight from the 'Weisshorn'. Unfortunately I found the thermals to be weak and hard to center.

Fanas

Sorry for not having posted for such a long time, but flying opportunities this spring have been pretty scarce and furthermore I have been to Germany (Hamburg and Mecklenburgische Seenplatte) with Ruth for 3 weeks of sightseeing and boating...    >> pictures here

So after almost 2 months of not flying today offered a chance.
Together with Andy we went to Fanas (probably my 'mistake', as first we had wanted to go to Fiesch and after having studied the different forecast we (probably wrongly) switched to Fanas. We shall see tonight when today's flights have been uploaded.)

Andy

Anyway: the day looked pretty nice, but people were taking off rather late and had trouble to climb quickly to a good altitude for crossing over  to the 'Kreuz'.
So it actually turned on only after 1200. But I have been not patient enough and I departed Fanas with less than the 2700m min alt required for an easy arrival over Stels. Therefore I lacked the 100+m I didn't climb before starting my crossing :-((
So promptly I paid for my mistake as arrived too low and wasn't able to climb up again...

Andy

 So quickIy had to land in Schiers (at least close to my car...)

LZ in Schiers

Flight can be found here :-((

Bassano

On my drive back home I could make a short flight at Bassano del Grappa.

PG TO (below), HG TO (upper left)

HG setup area and TO (upper center)

San Simeone

On Wednesday Marco took me to Monte San Simeone, a site I've not flown before.
The access is via a steep and narrow winding road, built during WW2 (?).
Nice launch with a great views towards Gemona/ LZ/ Tagliamento.
Unfortunately the conditions have been rather week..

Road to TO

looking towards Guarnan/ LZ/ Gemona/ Tagliamento

launch

(large) LZ in foreground; Mte San Simeone in Back

To finish off my short tript to Friuli, Nicole, Arduino,Marco and Alberto then invited me for a great dinner at the Trattoria Belvedere in Tarcento - again many thanks, as well as for your company!

Lijak

On Tuesday we (Marco, Alberto) could fly Lijac in Slowenia; conditions were much better than forecasted...

Alberto

Lijac TO

Pano on TO -looking SSW

Meduno

After San Fermo I continued towards the NE of Italy, where I stayed for 4 nights with Marco (Marco Zonca). On Monday we (Marco, Alberto, Fabiano)  visited Meduno (Monte Valinis).

Marco

San Fermo

An rather short notice I decided to join "FlywithAndy's"-training camp in San Fermo (near Bergamo, IT).
The guide was Michael Gebert, assisted by Tobi and Agnes. As usual it was a pleasure to be in a group guided by Michael: he is extremely knowledgeable, always smiling and takes good care of his custumers! When he was not taking care of us, he was training for the upcoming X-Alps contest by running from Casazza (at 330m) to San Fermo (at 1200m) in 75mins!
Luckily the weather on the first two days turned out to be better than forecasted and SAT, SUN have been excellent, that means we could fly every day (rather unusual having 4 days of flying in a row this year so far...)
I didn't attempt to do any toplandings, as I wanted to avoid taking any risks at all, but I groundhandled a bit - doing not too badly I think ;-)
And the flights (especially on SAT) have been very nice!

Pano looking W to NE: TO is on the left side

Michael

Agnes

free market economy...

Ryanair's Micheal O'Leary arrives in a hotel in Dublin, he goes to the bar and asks for a pint of draught Guinness. The barman nodded and said, "That will be one Euro please, Mr. O'Leary."

Somewhat taken aback, O'Leary replied, "That's very cheap," and handed over his money.
"Well, we try to stay ahead of the competition", said the barman. "And we are serving free pints every Wednesday evening from 6 until 8. We have the cheapest beer in Ireland"
"That is remarkable value" Michael comments
"I see you don't seem to have a glass, so you'll probably need one of ours.
That will be 3 euro please.

O'Leary scowled, but paid up. He took his drink and walked towards a seat.
"Ah, you want to sit down?" said the barman. "That'll be an extra 2 euro. - You could have pre-book the seat, and it would have only cost you a Euro."
"I think you may to be too big for the seat sir, can I ask you to sit in this frame please"
Michael attempts to sit down but the frame is too small and when he can't squeeze in he complains "Nobody would fit in that little frame".
"I'm afraid if you can't fit in the frame you'll have to pay an extra surcharge of €4.00 for your seat sir"

O'Leary swore to himself, but paid up. "I see that you have brought your laptop with you" added the barman. "And since that wasn't pre-booked either, that will be another 3 euro."
O'Leary was so annoyed that he walked back to the bar, slammed his drink on the counter, and yelled, "This is ridiculous, I want to speak to the manager".
"Ah, I see you want to use the counter," says the barman, "that will be 2 euro please." O'Leary's face was red with rage.
"Do you know who I am?"

"Of course I do Mr. O'Leary,"
"I've had enough, What sort of Hotel is this? I come in for a quiet drink and you treat me like this. I insist on speaking to a manager!"
"Here is his E mail address, or if you wish, you can contact him between 9 and 9.10 every morning, Monday to Tuesday at this free phone number. Calls are free, until they are answered, then there is a talking charge of only 10 cent per second"
"I will never use this bar again
"OK sir, but remember, we are the only hotel in Ireland selling pints for one Euro"

read and copied here

finally! :-)))

After more than 1 year of 'abstinence' of flying, today was finally the day of my 'maiden flight'.

Conditions on launch were perfect with just a little headwind, the thermals strong and high, the air cold ;-)

So after 1hr5mins I landed on the (snow covered) golfcourse...

The flight details can be found here.

My heartfelt thanks go to Ruth, who in the end accepted (though not with much enthusiasm) that I had to try and fly again.

Thanks to Kiwi (rt side) for his assistance

Weisshorn behind me

looking towards Engadin/ Piz Bernina

Weisshorn, the shadow of my glider is right over launch

More pictures on Flickr.

Preflight preparations -Step 5 (of 5)

Pano of Arosa during Tandemflight

And on the same day I visited the training hill, I was also able to make the aforementioned Tandemflight with 'Kiwi' (Mario Entzler - I didn't know his real name until today, though we have known each other for many years now...)

The flight didn't last very long (Kiwi had only the 39m2 glider available) and the thermals over Maran were pretty small and punchy.

We landed in Maran on the golfcourse, so the 'Golfhuus' was nearby for an after-flight-beer. We could enjoy the warm spring sun till 1740.

So next will (hopefully) be a solo flight...

Preflight preparation - step 4 (of 5)

Today I have visited the training hill in Trin (with Marina from http://www.fs-swissraft.ch) for a few inflations. I have used my old Mustang 2, as the terrain was rather muddy and I didn't want to 'spoil' the freshly checked Vega III.

Not perfect - as was to be expected - but good enough to make me feel comfortable to try a solo flight next.
Well, better: overnext...
I know that in my last blog I mentioned that my preflight preparations would have 4 steps. But I have added one more step: a tandem flight in order to bring back the feeling of 'flight'...