|
       
| |
|
Jean-Marc Caillard
|
Competition
Time
Once again the club had decided to run a Duo Discus
competition that this year involved nine gliders from various locations in
France. Ariane was fortunate enough to bag a flight with Jean-Marc
Caillard, twice World Champion and all-round good bloke.
The task was to be an AAT with suitably large circles
around the targets (100km, etc), encompassing areas around the Vanoise and
the Vercors. |
| Jean-Marc
played a tactical game deciding to make his first turn near Bonneval, some
way up the Sollieres valley, in order to make faster progress into his
next sector. After passing the pic de Bure he reached Luc-en-Dioise and
then turned for home, finishing second for the day. Ariane's comment was
that he didn't seem to need to turn very tightly at all - the Duo just
went up whatever their angle of bank.
Click here for his logger
file. |
The Queyras north of St Crepin
|
|
|
Topping up before the pas de la Cavale
|
A
consequence of Ariane's two-seater flight was that she was able to offer
me her own LS6c to fly - as it was already rigged I decided, being
basically a lazy bloke, to accept. Having spent several thousand hours in
my own go-faster 17.5m LS6, it was interesting to compare it with her
draggy 18m version.
All was going well until I found myself on Prachaval,
where I bumped into most of the Duo competition, who were also finding some
difficulty in locating a decent climb. |
| Thermal
discipline was as good as it gets in the Alps - while trying to ridge soar
a wingspan away from the mountain, I noticed one Duo below me turning right, hard against the rock face,
while another, just above me, was turning left in an equally determined manner. With eyes popping out of
my head in all directions, the audio vario chose this moment to fail.
Fiddling with the volume control, rebooting the instrument and swearing
had no discernable effect and, anyway, there was enough going on outside
the cockpit to keep me occupied. I decided to follow a likely looking Duo
as it headed off to the north; on hitting a violent thermal, the
instrument came back to life and all was well with the world
again.
Intermittent squeaking continued throughout the flight,
partly from the vario but mainly from the pilot. I managed to reach the
col du Carro and carried on into the Aosta valley before deciding to call
it a day and setting off for home. |
|
 
|
|
