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| ...And
finally... |
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The weather was about normal for Sisteron; while it was
soarable on every day of our visit, there were no big days (except for the local
pundits, of course). Several of the days had complications of one sort or
another; storms that curtailed flying activities, or that nagging mistral that
failed to deliver big wave climbs but which nevertheless succeeded in tearing
the thermals apart. That aside, the remaining days held all that one would
expect for early summer in the French Alps: off-the-clock thermals and
spectacular scenery.
I did get the feeling that the club was beginning to feel
the pinch in respect of reduced numbers of visitors this season, especially from
the Brits who are suffering from the double whammy of credit crunch and a poor
exchange rate. Had it not been for the presence of the Lasham team, the first two
weeks would have been extremely quiet; and even the Sisteron Regionals could only drum
up four confirmed entries, which is why the club canvassed for visitors to put their
names down for the comp to make up the numbers.
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| To balance this, the President,
the CFI and his deputies were all
on top form to ensure that the few visitors that they had would have a memorable
stay. I did find the met briefings a little tedious; they had adopted the
strategy of pumping out, willy-nilly, as much information as possible, often
conflicting and without due consideration as to
its potential accuracy; but as we all ended up plumping for the St Auban forecast,
I guess this was only a relatively small time-waster. |
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Oh - the tugging operation?? W-e-l-l...what can I say...? The
club is employing 'professional' pilots but they are very young and not
necessarily familiar with gliding operations; I suppose my little incident was
an extreme example of how things could go wrong. In general, we found that the
tows were good but, because we were usually two-up in 220, we always got the
more powerful tugs anyway.
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Back on the ground, the club maintained its tradition of offering weekly aperitifs
and monthly barbecues to its visitors, which was a great opportunity to get to know our fellow
pilots and the rest of the Sisteron team. I think our own team had a good enough time this year to make
early plans to return in 2010 - and some are hoping to come back again this September, so
the club must be doing something right.
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