Bell Hill

Due to the heavy morning commuter traffic I needed more than 3 hours to drive from Worcester to Bell Hill. (Some info about the site); especially around Bath traffic has been really slow. But I managed to arrive at the agreed time. Already several pilots were flying/ waiting.

Pano on launch (looking SW-NW)

The wind speed (as Eddie had predicted) was already rather high, but preparing my glider quite far down on the ridge I managed a acceptable launch. I flew for about 30' before landing, as my ground speed had continously dropped to well below 10kmh.

As the fcst had predicted that the winds would get weaker in the afternoon, we hung around until 1800. Eddie made a short flight with my harness/ glider, but as he was flying at the lower edge of the weight range, he didn't penetrate well in the strong wind and landed after just a few minutes... For me the wind remained too strong.

Eddie flying my Leeloo/ harness

'How do you know it's summer in England? - when the rain is not as cold...'

For the night I booked a nearby B&B, as we intend to fly again here tomorrow.

Hereford (noFly)

Tue (4.6.) No chance for flying :-(  Eddie had suggested a visit to Hereford and its cathedral; a very good suggestion as it turned out. The cathedral is a very impressive building, holding in adddition the original 'Magna Charta' (a facsimile is on display, but the original is kept in a safe) as well as the 'Mappa Mundi', one of the oldest maps of the world. Further more there is a 'chained library', where books (as old as dated back to 800 AD) are actually chained, so that they couldn't be removed (or stolen). As an additional bonus: by coincidence the organist has been practising during our visit...

Cained Library

Mappa Mundi: detail: Switzerland (Basel)

Mappa Mundi

Dinner at a nearby Sushi restaurant...

Tomorrow the wx is supposed to be better, but the wind speed could still be an issue. Eddie wants me 'as early as possible' at a flying site called 'Bell Hill' - a 2.75hrs drive from Hereford. I'll be leaving by 0630; this should allow me to be on launch by 1000 (with a stop for a breakfast somewhere along the way).

Long Mynd

Mon (3.6.) Even though the fcst didn't look too promising, Eddie (my guide for the week here in the UK) had suggested we'd meet at Longmynd. (In the early days of PG/ HG almost all British records had been flown from this site.) Longmynd is a very beautiful site with a HUGE TO, a long ridge. Landing can be done on launch (pretty easy, almost no rotor) or at a large field within easy glide at the bottom. Launch is only about 200m above LZ and flying here requires a different skill set from what I'm used when flying in the Alps.

More info about this site: here

At first I did some groundhandling/ launches before launching for a first (short) flight: the ridge lift was a bit too weak, but Eddie quickly picked me up and drove me back to launch. my second flight resulted also in a landing at the bottom. After a lenghty break (due to wind speed) I finally could make a third (short) flight, this time top-landing :-)

Pano on launch looking SW-NW

LZ

Eddie (my guide)

For dinner we stopped at an Indian Restaurant in Church Stretton, before I continued to Hereford, where I stayed for 2 nights at the Travelodge in the city center. The hotel actually is situated in a 'car free' area. Both my navigators (in the car / handy) have been unable to direct me to entrance of the parking lot. After having driven around for more than 30' without finding the parking, I finally paid a cab driver 10GBP for guiding me to the hotel/ parking...

UK

SUN (2.6.) After having toured Ireland for the last 2 weeks together with Ruth in my car (she flew back home from Dublin) I arrived today by ferry in Holyhead (Wales). Some Ireland pix can be found here. The wx has been really nice (smooth sailing) as well as the drive through Wales' mountains. I passed alos Llangollen, which I had visited with Ruth in 2010 on a trip with a houseboat. 

Welsh mountains

Llangollen - Pontcysyllte Aqueduct

Forthe night I stayed in Shresbury. The coming week I'll be spending visiting some PG sites in Wales/ England together with my guide Eddie.

Levico - last day of iCamp

Sat: excellent wx and thermal fcst. As this was the last day of this iCamp no more flying over the lake; instead we drove again to Levico to finish off this week with a nice thermal flight. Later everybody returned home.

Levico: Vetriolo launch

Pano looking SW-W: Levico Terme at3 o'clock

LZ in Barca

With a final Gelato and Cappuccino in Levico this iCamp came to an end. The descion NOT to cancel the training 10 days ago has proven correct: only 1 day without any flying at all and another day with just 1 extended sledder at Levico before it started to rain: on all the other days I could make 1 or 2 flights, some did 3.

Heading back with Andy via - Trento - Bolzano - Tiers (where Andy picked up some stuff from Michael) - Bolzano - Merano - Val Venosta - Val Müstair -  Ofenpass - Vereinatunel (we reached the train with 5 minutes to spare)  - Klosters - home (arriving at 2230).

    

Ofenpass looking East: Ortler

SIV No 3

Fri: great wx on Mte.Baldo for another (and last) day of SIV. Today Peter (Nitsche) has been my instructor. I made 2 flights: spirals, wing-overs, big collpses and 'held collapses' as a means for descending.

Spirals: 1st flight: peak at -17m/s; 2nd flight: peak at -14m/s :-))   (with left ear folded in)

Wingovers: nice and high

(held) collapses: no problem, but not really a effective means for descending...

spiral with left ear folded in

Most of the pilots went for a 3rd flight, but yesterday's hike to Mte.Belpo had been a bit too much for my left foot which started to make walking a bit painful, so I had to decline. Andy and I headed back to our hotel in Rovereto and a nice gelato...

I didn't attempt any Full Stalls/ Fly-backs - maybe next time/ year..

Monte Belpo

Thur: MteBaldo was supposed to remain in clouds, so we had 2 options: Levico or Mte.Belpo at the South end of Lake Garda. The majority wanted to see a new flight area, so we headed for Pesina, the LZ for Mte.Belpo. Here Tiziana, a friend of Michael and Gudrun was waiting for us and showed the way to the parking and then to launch. I was told it would be about '10 minutes', but in the end it turned out to be something close to 45' (for me!) and a bit more than 100meters uphill...

Mte.Belpo (top) Pano looking SW (lake Garda)

LZ in Pesina (the whole field between the 2 roads) (looking West)

Conditions for this first flight: good on launch, but just a tad to weak to be good ;-) Andy flew 'my' Leeloo3, but also feels more comfortable on the 'normal' Leeloo..

We drove up again, but only some pilots climbed again to the top of Mte.Belpo, the rest descended in about 20' to another launch called 'Gas'. Here we had to wait until the West wind increased, but then conditions became really good. Unfortunately I had made an error while 'hooking in', as I twisted the accelerator in such a way that it became completely blocked/ unusable. This made me land prematurely :-(

'Gas' - looking SW-W

Waiting for all the pilots to land, a few uf us visited a nice Gelateria nearby; later the whole group had dinner at a local restaurant.

Mte.Baldo - SIV No2

Tue: unfortunately the wx didn't allow for any flighing; so more analysis of Sunday's flights and theory...

Wed: we departed at 0800 for Malcesine/ Mte.Baldo for our second SIV-day. The fcst 'promised' 1 or 2 flights, but also rather strong East-winds. 

Pano looking North: Lake Garda, Riva

This meant, that we had to wait rather long before everyone found a moment where the wind 'suited' him/ her for launching. I did only one flight: spirals and collapses. The wx slowly worsened and the wind started to increase, so some pilots had to take the gondola back down; later even some rain...

After a late lunch - for me: Gelati ;-) - we returned to Rovereto.

Levico

(Mon) Unfortunately the wx permitted only an extended sledder at Levico Therme; when the thermals finally became stronger it also started to rain. I have flown my 'old' Leeloo on which I felt a lot more at ease than on the Leeloo 3. So certainly yesterday's desicion to 'abandon' that wing is has been the correct one, though it still 'hurts' a bit to give up such a performant and great looking wing. Due to the wx I did take almost no pix... After flying we had lunch at ristorante/ albergo 'Aurora' in Vetriolo before returning to Rovereto. Here we had a first look at yesterdays flights over Lake Garda.

just after having packed up it started to rain...

sheltering from the rain while waiting for the second bus 

iCamp: Monte Baldo/ Malcesine: SIV No 1 and a difficult desicion

Sunday started (again) with much better wx than had been forecasted so already at 0800 we left for Malcesine on Lake Garda. At the LZ we received another briefing about the conditions and manouevers, with special emphasis on the local wind system (Ora); also the harnesses where checked. Then we headed for the cable car to Monte Baldo.

LZ looking NW/ N

waiting for the cable car

Malcesine / Lake Garda at middle station

TO on Mte.Baldo

Most of us did 2 flights, some 3; on my first flight I just did several wing overs and spirals: both of them with much room for improvement, as this glider (a 2-liner) needs much bigger/ stronger imputs. On the second flight again wing overs and spirals - a bit better, as well as frontal collapses.

Reserve parachutes left hanging to dry...

Quite a large number of pilots got their feet wet - but only one of our group :-) ; but 

1 pilot i our group got his feet wet, where as a surprisingly large number
of other pilots either had to throw their reserve during
a badly executed manoeuver or underestimated the influence of the
increasingly stronger Ora on approach and therefore landed short...

At the end of the day I have deciced to return this Leeloo to Michael, as it simply is too performant for me: the glider is very easy to launch and even easier to land; its performance, especially when using speed bar is very impressive. But it also needs bigger and stronger inputs on the brakes/ controls to make it enter a good spiral or to make high wingovers... It has not been an easy decision, but I had to take it as I simply don't feel confident enough to handle the glider in strong thermal/ bumpy conditions or when it would be necessary to make a rapid descent, be it because I needed to get down due to wx (ie CB etc) or of the danger of breaching an airspace restriction without descending... Furthermore it would have been very tempting to keep on flying this one-of-a-kind glider.

Many thanks to Michael (Profly.org) for being so kind as having designed this glider especially for me, and at the same time sorry that I don't keep on flying with it!

Panettone (Bassano); tx Rovereto (iCamp)

Sat: again contrary to our expectations the day started with much better wx than we had anticipated :-)

Andy has driven me to Panettone, from where I could make a nice flight with even some decent thermals; I landed after about 40', as we had to leave for Rovereto, where at 1500 our iCamp (SIV) was due to begin.

At the hotel quite a large group ha dalready gathered: 5 trainers/ drivers and 18 trainees. The briefing started with the explanations of the manouvers the piliot wanted to fly durning this week. Out of the 7 days 3 (if wx permitts) are planned for SIV/ manouever trainig over Lake Garda with the flights taking of from Mte. Baldo (1745msl). As I had flown my new Leeloo only for a few flights so far, I would be  doing only wing overs, spirals, frontal collapses at the beginning...

Travel / Bassano - light rain (Video)

Yesterday (Thur, 2.5.) Andy and I have driven to Bassano (- Vereina tunnel - Ofenpass - Münstertal - Vinschgau -Trento -); a 7hr drive, partly in rain. Our first stop in Italy: Schluderns (Caffe Time) for an icream and a capucchino ;-)

Todays fcst didn't look too promising, but waking up in the morning we could see some 'blue disturbances' and no rain for the moment. Soon some gliders could be seen... After breakfast we drove to Tapetti-launch; where we met Hans and Thomas guiding a group of pilots from Flatlandparagiding. As the sky began to darken, Andy helped me to prepare my gluider and as I was finally ready, the first drops of rain could be felt...

Due to the wx, it has been only a short flight, but the wing seems even easier on TO and LDG than the 'normal' Leeloo ;-) 

But at least the flight provided enough data to make the following video: many thanks to Andy for editing my raw material and adding the music!

The rest aof the day remained wet :-( Dinner at Garden Relais: Steak & Salad and for dessert their famous 'Mille Feuilles)...