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| Ariane flew once again with
Hervé Perrin in the Duo Competition, flying CG once again. Today's was a
4 hour 30 minute task that was to include up to 7 legs into the northern,
southern, eastern and
western quadrants of the airfield. Scoring would be one point per km, with
extra points for the furthest
distance flown in each sector and for the longest single leg. Ariane and
HP managed Ventoux, Aiguines, Viso, Chabre, La Bigue and home for the longest flight
of the day at around 430km, using mostly convergence effects. Michel Trial,
from Fayence, landed out at Sollieres, but managed to collect almost
enough bonuses to beat team CG. I dread to think how much the aerotow retrieve cost... |
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Mt Viso
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| For me, it was a curious start to the day, overcast with a line of Cu spilling low over the Gache,
while at the same time the thermal over Hongrie delivered a base at least 1500ft higher at
7000ft. The sky looked grey with few cumulus, and was clearly going to be a 'technique' day.
I took a route to the Ecrins via Chabres, Céuse, pic de Bure and
Chabriéres.
The sky in the Ecrins was almost totally blue, with very few cumulus and excellent visibility. Carrying on to the north, the inversion level rose to 13,500ft
while the thermals offered 5kt climbs. At Chaberton I decided to cross the col d'Etache into the Sollieres valley to try to reach the col de
Carro. The wind here was about 10kt/030 degrees and on one of the ridges that led into the
south-eastern edge of the valley I found some wave that took me to 15000ft. There didn't seem to many options left at this stage of the afternoon (5:30pm) so I retreated back over the col towards the Queyras and the Barcelonnette valley.
Unusually, Mt Viso was totally cloud-free, as were the Italian flatlands to the east.
I returned to base via a glide along the northern edge of the Barcelonette
valley. |
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Steve: "...and then I
remembered I'd left the keys in the glider!"
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Meanwhile, Steve
had landed out after making one too many explorations of some of the unsoarable
parts of the pic de Bure. He found a field south of the col de Bayard into
which he and his Mosquito managed to land safely and without damage.
Steve being Steve, he chose to get a taxi back to Sisteron to fetch his
own car for a self-retrieve...
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