Flying Abroad
Summer 1986 Annecy, Aix les Bains, Samoans
My first foreign flying was in 1987 at Annecy in France. I had gone there with a pilot Called Dave Griffith who had not been flying that long. It took us 3 days to get there; we got lost after ferry and took the coastal road and then by trying to avoid the toll roads got lost going through Paris. The take off at Annecy’s Col d’ Forclas is from a wooden ramp, which, after each take off, one of the planks in the ramp had to be hammered back down so that the next pilot didn’t trip over it when he was using the ramp. On our first flight Dave wanted me to help him off, as the other pilots were French. After getting him off an English spectator came up to me and asked if I’d got him off first so that I could see how it was done, the cheek! Once I was in the air I found that it was hard work keeping in the light thermals and I only got to 200-300ft above the take off. Dave wasn’t doing that well, not being very experienced at keeping in thermals; he was flying a plateau out in front and lower than the ridge. Eventually we both landed safely at the landing field near the lake.
The next day the conditions were very similar and the flights were the same except I was the first in the air. Dave again didn't do very well and set off for the landing field after getting low on the front plateau. He didn’t realise that the wind, which had been blowing him to the landing field the day before, was now a head wind. This meant that he was too low to get to the field. There was nowhere to land safely between where he was and the field, as the mountain was covered with trees then there was the road then the lake. He told me later that when he knew he wasn’t going to reach the field he had planned to land in a small lay-by at the side of the road but a lorry pulled into it first. He finished up in a garden at the side of the road hitting a high hedge at a height of 10ft. He was unhurt but had broken both uprights on his glider.
We were both flying the same type of glider, a Gold Marque Gyr, but my spare uprights wouldn’t fit his glider so this meant a move to Aix les Bains where there was a glider repair shop. (To be continued)
Saturday12th May 2001 - High South Take Off Chabre(Larange)
Only Roy, a French pilot and myself were left at the take off, when a dust devil came through and looped Roy’s glider, luckily no damage was done.
This motivated me to take off quickly, with a long fast run and flew into a thermal directly below the take off. I gained height, but never got above the top. Previously I had seen a Paraglider, doing well, near the north take off so I flew in that direction and hit a massive thermal with the vario off the clock and 7.6 on the averager. This quickly took me up to 5000 feet, above take off, under a cloud that was just forming. I topped out at 5,300 feet. I then flew towards the western end of the ridge, getting down to 2,300 feet several times and using the thermal trigger points to climb back to 4,500 feet.
Once past Ballons, I flew onto the Col. St. Jean and tried for the Col. d’Izon, a high cliff faced col. I flew into sink all the way across the wide gap but by the time I got to about ¼ mile away from it I was down to 1,000' above take off. I decided I did not fancy a long walk back, so I turned back through the same sink I’d flown through earlier. Luckily the thermal at the Col. St. Jean was still working and I gained height back to 3,000 feet. The same thermal trigger points got me back to above the take off.
Roy, who was still at the take off, informed me by radio, that more dust devils had come through and that the wind was coming straight down the spine. This made take off impossible and he was waiting to see if the wind would change direction. I
was now beginning to feel cold so I flew back to the campsite to land. I was pleased to find the evening thermal activity that is normally present over the campsite, which makes it difficult to land, was not present. On approaching the landing field the windsock was switching between south and southwest so I landed along the track from the campsite reception towards the railway line.
Time in the air 2 hours 50 minutes, distance 32km. out and return.
John who had rigged his glider on the less rocky, lower take off spent most of the day holding his Atos down protecting it from the dust devils. The wind then changed direction, so he derigged and due to a lack of communications, then drove back to the campsite, leaving Roy at the top of the mountain to return on foot.