3 days, 2 nights in Fiesch...

Overnight in Niederwald, so I can avoid the search for a parking space at Fiesch. The railway station is just across the road from the hotel, in Fiesch the train is stopping at the gondola station and I try to plan my flights in such a way that I can land in Niederwald... And even if I should land somewhere else, there is a train back to Niederwald every hour (and additionally a few post busses).

Niederwald

Weisshorn (4505m)

Day 1 (Thursday): Arriving in Niederwald from home by car and taking the post bus to Fiesch. Initially low cloud base and thermals develloping rather late. During the course of the day the quality of the thermals increased substantially and cloud base rose. Landing as planned in Niederwald after about 1h50'. But it has been cold up there ;-)

abeam Ulrichen: looking East:Grimsel; Dammastock, Furka

For dinner: cheese fondue: as Ruth isn't very fond of cheese (fondue) I took advantage of the opportunity of having a fondue on my own (with lots of garlic) ;-)
 

Day 2 (Fri): what a surprise! I met Rob (Smith) on launch; I really didn't expect to see him here this summer, as it's only about 15 weeks since his accident.

Unfortunately today has been much more stable than anticipated and even though I launched even later than yesterday, I didn't find anything worthwile at Bellwald :-(

Rob (Swing Nyos RS)

looking North: Eggishorn (2926m); Aletsch glacier, Mönch (4107m)

Day 3 (Sat): Just getting older (and more stupid): I filled up my waterbottle at the fountain in Kühboden and left my cockpit there :-(( As I was preparing for my flight I realized this and started walking back towards Kühboden. That's when Burny called and told me that he had 'found' the cockpit: thanks a lot!!!

 I didn't like much the (increasing) West-Wind, so I landed near my car at Niederwald. But quite a number of pilots made it across the passes to(wards) Graubünden...

Ikuma2

A3-Line: yellow; Stabilo-Line: red; (Brakes: red)

Lately I got the modifications of the lines of my Ikuma2 made (by Asagiri SA in Bex).

a) A3-line (needed for making big ears): this line is very thin (as are all the lines on this glider), so big ears are extremely hard to hold for a prolonged time. We replaced this line with a (slightly) thicker line, but the stitching of the 'loop' has been made 30 centimeters long. Now the ears are much more comfortable to hold.
b) stabilo-lines: they are marked in red only on the first few centimeters. In case of a problem -when I need to find this line very quickly- I consider this insufficient; therefore the original stabilo line has been replaced by a line completely coloured red.

I'm aware that these replacement lines are slight thicker than the original lines provided by Niviuk, thus producing a bit more drag. But I consider this neglectable, especially as I'm flying with a 'classic' harness, which produces lots of parasite drag anyway ;-)

(Just in case I have kept all the original lines, so they can be switched back any time if necessary...)

Fiss-Ladis (Schönjoch)

Just back from a couple of days in Fiss-Ladis together with Ruth; so just a short flight from 'Schönjoch'  ;-)

Schönjoch

It's a really nice flight area with (for me!) very conveniently located launches and landings: quite close to gondola stations :-) There is also an alternative launch near the middlestation of the 'Schönjoch-Bahn' in case it should be too windy on top.
XC would be possible direction NW (Switzerland (Scuol) or Italy (Nauders, Watles)) and NE (Innsbruck). Going NE one has to pay attention to LOWI (Innsbruck) airspace; violations will be punished with heavy fines :-((
- but I just flew locally for about 40 minutes...

Main LZ

There is another LZ: 'Ried' at the bottom of the valley (near Inn river), but in summer it is very often too windy after 1200 (till about 1800). But in case you land there, there is a bus station nearby in the village to get back to Fiss.

Pano looking South: Fiss

Pano looking North (launch on the left)

Pano looking NW: Fiss

Summer flying in Kyushu (JP)

Normally, Leanne and Rick Brezina use their summer vacation to come to Europe and fly here. (Rick has been my 'advisor' during my trip to Kyushu in 2019.) But due to the present (Covid-) situation, this year that has not been possible. So they are taking advantage of the relatively good weather in Kyushu to enjoy the flying back home.
Rick is really pushing the limits of flying in Kyushu (and Japan): until today (22.8.) conditions permitted him to make already 25 flights in August, whereof 3 FAI-triangles > 100km! Take-off: Daikanbo and Kabuto-iwa. Kyushu record!

 

Scuol -2

Yesterday PeterW and I had wanted to drive to Disentis and watch a bit of 'PWC-action', but we didn't like too much the fcst - especially the 3-4 hp south overpressure.


(see exerpt from the disentisopen-site below)

20. August 2020

Meteo and preview:

Until noon in the east (Flims-Davos) still cloud fields
1-2/8 Cumulus rising to 3300
Individual overdevelopments possible at the very east
Thermal weak to moderate, relatively ! late start
Pressure gradient increases from 3 to 4hp south overpressure
Wind from here to Calanda:
No or weak valley winds, in Chur ev weak south wind
2000m 15kmh SW
3000m 20-25kmh SW
East of the Rhine the SW wind should be weaker. Davos should have weak, normal valley wind (north) at 15h.


>> so we decided to call it a day and leave the flying to the 'cracks' ;-)

-------------------------------------------

Unfortunately today PeterW had to work again so I went to Scuol on my own: many more pilots on launch! Conditions looked promising, but it took a moment for the thermals to devellop. Some guy flew a FAI-Triangle of 211km!

But I cannot show (even a remotely) similar performance :-(
After about 2 hours of flying I lacked a bit the motivation to continue and landed at Scuol. On the positive side: at least the average speed was a bit higher than 2 days ago ;-)

the castle at Tarasp

Pano looking East: Ftan, Scuol, Inn river, Tarasp

Scuol (Motta Naluns) with PeterW: 71.5km (flat triangle)

I had driven to Schiers, where I met PeterW. We took the train to Scuol and then the gondola to Motta Naluns. Just a few pilots on launch; they launched quickly and climbed away.

PeterW

There has been a little West-wind, so we flew first East to Martina (near the Swiss-Austrian border). Here we turned around and headed West (via Motta Naluns). The climbs (with a few exceptions) have been quite nice (and strong) and thermal tops have been steadily rising (my max alt: > 3700m).

near Martina; looking South: left: Nauders (AT); right: Reschensee (IT)

Heading East: Susch

Conditions looked promising so PeterW and I took a chance of trying to fly back to the car at Schiers via Flüelapass and Davos. We already had discussed this option on the train.

Piz Palü (3900); Biz Bernina (4048), Piz Roseg (3936)

PeterW; Val Susasca and the road towards Flüelapass

The closer we got to Flüelapass, the stonger the West-wind became and as our groundspeed dropped to 15kph we decided to abort this attempt and turn back to Scuol.

Landing at the LZ in Scuol after 3h45min and 71.5km (flat triangle) with just enough time to spare so we could reach the train back to Schiers without having to hurry too much :-))

the flight on Ayvri.com

Schrina

Just a short flight at Walenstadt :-)







>> LZ on the left side of the road -not on the sport fields!!


The harness is set correctly (again).

:-))

Finally - with a delay of a bit more than a week (4 iso 2-3 weeks as 'promised') my new wing has arrived :-))  Today I could pick it up at 'Paragliding Touch and Go' in Rickenbach. Peter has (as usual) done everything possible to have the glider here as fast as possible, but as it had to be sent from Spain by Niviuk, there was not much he could do to accelerate delivery.

Of course I had to fly the wing right away ;-)  A nice local flight from Rothenfluh (1.25hrs)

Rothenfluh: launch(es)

right to left: Rothenfluh, Grosser Mythen, Kleiner Mythen

It flies beautifully; especially accelerated glide is amazing. There has been a small problem, as the wing didn't really want to turn left, whereas to the right it turned by weight-shift only...

After the flight I had my harness checked by Peter and he found that one of the (many) adjustment options didn't have the same setting as on the other side. But that's now fixed and I'm looking forward for the next flight :-)

 

777 Rook2: some statistics:

I bought the wing almost 4 years ago (12.9.2016) and flew it for about 260 flights. Longest flight: 4hr17min and 89kms (from Motta Naluns, Scuol).

It has served me very well during those 4 years and I never had a major problem!

"the King is dead, long live the new King!"

 

La Breya (Orsières/ Champex)

La Breya: a flight area I had wanted to visit for a long time. It's an ideal starting point for a 'tour around Mt.Blanc'.  >>> a flight around Mt.Blanc  (unfortunately not mine...)

Of course I had hoped for such conditions - yesterday 3 pilots did it. But the light N-/NE- wind and the inversion made such a flight impossible today. 

Launch (at approx) 2200m is reached by chair lift from 'Champex Lac', which in turn is reached by car or (in my case) by bus from 'Orsieres' (train station); it offers great views towards Lake Geneva, Verbier, Grand Combin and Val Ferret. There are options for launching direction South and North. South would have been preferable (so we laid out here first), as here we would have launched directly into the thermals but the increasing wind forced us to use the North launch.

Pano looking South: Verbier (far left), Grand Combin (center)

 

Grand Combin (4314m)

South launch (looking North-East direction Verbier)

Looking North towards Lake Geneva

Val Ferret (with Col Ferret at the end); launch (right side)

Overview (looking West)

LZ 'Som-la-Praz' (Orsieres)

Due to the northerly wind the south facing slopes were in the lee and also turbulent. Most (all?) pilots landed at Orsieres (Som-la-Praz) after less than an hour. Today have not been ideal conditions for flying here - as I know by now ;-)

Afterwards I drove back home: luckily without any traffic jams at all :-)

 

 

Good conditions - lousy flying (Plan Praz)

Probably I had just one or two bites too much meat last night for dinner and therefore slept rather badly ;-)

 

I arrived early (for me) on launch at 1000 (that's rather early for me) and hung around for about an hour watching and taking pictures.

Plan Praz launch, looking towards le Brévent

 

I never had an urge to quickly go ahead and get airborne, so I finally launched at 1130. Good conditions permitted me to get above 'le Brévent' in just a short while.

 

le Brévent

 

According to Vincent's advise I tried to fly East first - direction 'Aiguilles Rouges'. Unfortunately I didn't find much lift so I turned around at 'Flégère'.

But I was already too low and also lacked the motivation/ drive to hang-in the weak, bumpy thermals. Landing at 'Savoy' after just 50 minutes... Later (after having packed up), it looked as conditions had improved as quite a number of gliders could be seen above 'Aiguilles Rouges'.

 

If you want to hike up to Plan Praz (instead of taking the gondola) there is a nice track. It's 'just' a 1000m climb ;-)

Plan Praz (Chamonix) - some pix by Vincent

 

Merci Vincent pour ces photos!