5 Jun 05

5 Jun 05

First Day

At the weather briefing this morning Hervé Perrin showed us the current European charts, gleefully pointing out the dreadful weather sitting over the UK. He then showed us deteriorating weather over the Alps for the next few days and a juicy high developing over the UK. What were we doing here, he asked...

The weather was hot (by UK standards) but not hot enough for the Alps. There were many strong inversion levels and blue conditions would persist to make the day very difficult.

Ariane flew in the competition with Hervé in the Duo Discus Charlie-Golf. The task was a free-distance flight in which only 250km were achieved, giving CG a lowly 5th place (out of ten).

Gridding up


La Blanche from low down	I was unable to go very far today and managed to see Colombis from below the level of the tower. Finding only two decent thermals in the entire 6-hour flight I was disappointed to say the least in the conditions, although towards the end of the day I did find some wave, getting to 12500ft to the east of the pic de Bure. The wind was all over the place - a 1 knot southerly at 7000ft in the Gap valley, while at the Crete de Selles, there was a 21 knot north-westerly.

Debrief in the Janus
The Janus restaurant now offers pizzas for late-landing pilots and, as we waited for ours to arrive Steve revealed his true gallant nature by fetching a chair from another table of three for a pretty young woman who was standing nearby talking to Ariane. Most amusing when the fourth member of the other other table returned from the toilets...