Eye in the Sky Oct 2006

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Report by Alastair Florence

I made Bell my first stop today as I had expected the wind direction to start NW and then go East as the day went on.

At first it looked ok although very murky. But smoke from the chimmeny's on the cottages at the bottom was going horizontal to the hill so a re location to Monks seemed in order.

Monks looked almost on the strong side at first with low cloud racing over but was fine once in the air. 6 of us had about 1/2 an hour before the wind died off and never came back despite many wind sacrifices. Nice soft air with some workable lift to 300 ft ato max, unfortunate for the majority who turned up just as the wind died, still after an extra hour in bed you should have got up earlier. rating 5 (mainly because its just good to get any kind of fly again after the recent pants spell of conditions) Nev A won longest top to bottom glide of the day on his HG thingy.

Report by Mark Fisher

Ringstead: Very busy day today at least 15 pilots too many to name, counted 12 at cliffs. Good to see visiting pilot Dan from NZ performing some acro over the Nothe and Steve P doing some great spirals. Flying most of the day and ended up at The Spice Ship.

Report by Keith Burridge

A week in les Greolieres with Andrew Pearce’s Flying Frenzy provided six (could have squeezed a damp seventh) out of seven flying days in various locations in the alps just north of Nice. Flying ranged from smooth flying in brisk winds, bumpy ridge soaring and relaxing large top to bottoms including an awesome flight over Monaco. The various conditions and locations provided opportunities for performing flying tasks, exercises and afforded a greater understanding of “what and why” ones’ wing, sometimes does, “what it does when it does”. Amongst the crew were Wessex members Tony Farthing & Shamus Pitts. A good time was had by all. Shame we didn’t have a Bill & Ted there because it certainly was an “excellent adventure!”

Report by Alastair Florence

Drove home from work tonight via Milk Hill. 5 pilots on site, started off over by the Milk White Horse which was strongish but not that lifty. The wind eased off so we relocated to the bowl which was a better fly. Still strongish but not that lifty. Still I havent had a fly since the last time so good to get out again and havent been to Milk for over a year. Rated 4.

Report by Cory-wright, Simon

BACK FROM BRILLIANT BASSANO Further to Russell and Luigi’s reports, I’ve been charged with writing the ‘Official’ Wessex Posse Bassano Trip Report. So here goes. Well as a pilot 3 yrs post-CP with 50-ish hours, for me this was just about the perfect flying holiday. I’ve done two trips to Mayrhofen (in Sept 03 and Jun 04) and one trip to Piedrahita (in Sept 05), and neither was a patch on Bassano. The stats tell the story - 9 days, all flyable (two were overcast so just top to bottoms), 12 hours added to the logbook from the 7 days we chose to fly. After 3 years of flying that’s 20% more hours added to my logbook in one week! Day 1 - one of the two overcast days so just a top to bottom, perfect though to get my flying legs back after 3 months off.

Day 2 - was just getting ready to launch for my first proper flight when I was greeted with the rather brown-undies-inducing sight of a local hotshot cravatting massively and going down under his reserve right in front of takeoff (without injury it turned out). “Hmmm, what the hell am I getting myself into?!” I was thinking. All was well though (it turned out it the reserve deployment arose from a combo of hot wing and not so hot pilot) and I happily launched, flew and landed an hour and a half later with a huge smile on my face after a superb flight in plentiful lift.

Days 3 to 7 - Every day was fine, warm and sunny with light winds and even with high pressure and a heavy inversion, we enjoyed brilliant thermal soaring conditions. We were able to stay up from about 11. 30am each day, with flights of 2 hours plus easy-peasy - even for someone like me who was still popping his serious thermalling cherry. None of us was really on a mission to do major XC, so even with the inversion keeping a lid on venturing too far, we still had a good 8 kms of ridge on which to play about, explore and learn.

Day 8 - the other overcast day but still eminently top to bottomable if we could’ve been bothered - we couldn’t, so went for a beautiful walk in the forest instead, spotting wild big-horn sheep/goats along the way.

Day 9 - Best flight of the trip, with weaker inversion and better climbs, great views and a chance to out-thermal local cracks on twitchy proto-type wings by calmly steering my nice and safe DHV 1 Gin Bolero into cores whilst they spent most of their time fending off tucks and collapses.

Highlights of the week were: 1. Thermalling up to 600m above takeoff side by side with Luigi and with birds of prey, who barely acknowledge your presence even when they’re within about 10 yards 2. Thermalling with sailplanes, who fortunately DO acknowledge your presence before they get within 10 yards 3. Finding out that a DHV 1 glider is a perfectly suitable piece of equipment for achieving long flights, going anywhere and occasionally getting to the top of the stack of 50 or so gliders of various classes.

4. Acro-Mike A perfecting the infinity tumble during the week - only no one told Mike that infinity tumbles are meant to happen in the air, not in the form of forward rolls down the slope as a result of aborted takeoffs 5. Awesome food, wine and sorbeto at L’Antica Abbazia (The Old Abbey) 6. A lowlight really but worth mention - Polish pilots. You can’t tar all pilots from one country with the same brush, but in Bassano the visiting Poles were like the Keystone Cops of the skies. Their takeoff, flying and landing techniques would have been truly comical if they hadn’t been such a danger to everyone else. Best example was one guy who, when confronted with overshooting the landing field, decided to pull down hard on his A-risers from about 30 feet up to get down quicker. How he didn’t front-tuck I’ll never know.

7. Last but certainly not least, Luigi’s superb hospitality, organisation and guidance - not to mention vociferous efforts for the rights of visiting flyers.

We were probably particularly lucky with the weather, but Bassano really is awesome. There’s lots to do for non-flyers too. Anyone going must have proof of insurance and theoretically should have an IPPI card to level 4 (i. e. BHPA Pilot rated) according to the Italian Federation website anyway. But Luigi can advise on the reality on the ground, as well as the local politics surrounding the Montegrappa Airpark ‘Fly Card’, which is another story altogether.

Sat 14 Oct 2006

Report by Sean Staines

Nick LeGras and I went to the Malverns on Saturday on the basis of a BBC forcast for 9mph easterly with lots of sunshine.

We waited in the fog on top of the hill until around 3pm when it eventually started to clear. Paraglider pilots started appearing from their hiding places and eventaually I counted 25 pilots in the air with great ridge soaring conditions. Nick made it over to the Worcestershire Beacon end of the ridge. Glad we didn’t go to Pandy.

Report by RW

Luigi's Office was immensely flyable for 90% of the week. The weather was unexpectedly sunny and warm with thermic flying begiinning around 1130hrs each day, some Pilots were in the air at 0830hrs for the usual "Sled Ride".

Some Pilots like Luigi and the Wessex's new "Sky God" Simon C. W. were at it for more than 3 hrs. The first day for me was a little unerving as immediately after T. O. one Pilot hit sink too close to the ridge top and did a tree landing in quite a remote place as I approached the lower South T. O. a wing went into a parachutal stall ( Icaro Incanto ) and oscillated left & right quite spectacularly, then plummeted into the trees, fortunately there were no injuries but it took all day to retrieve them. After that it was flying from several different T. O. s on the Montegrappa with amazing scenery and the backdrop of the Dolomites. The food was fabulous the wine very tasty but the Grappa ( potent liquor) was excellent as was Luigi's hospitality. This Site is to be recommended & Luigi is organising another event for next Spring, its as cheap as chips.

Report by Mike Bretherton

Went to Pandy with Simon Herbert today, it was very foggy but it was forecast to clear up. The wind was just right but the fog just did not clear up so we did the usual parawaiting all day. About 10 others turned up, and a few brave souls actually did fly. It got quite gusty on the top take off but the lower one was ok for most of the day if the near zero visibility did not bother you. Simon and me did not bother braving it as there is always another day and it did not look particular pleasant.

Report by Luigi Degli Esposti

The Wessex Posse (Russell W, Jacquie, Mike A & Annie, Dr Charles, Simon Cory-Wright & Sylvana) arrived Bassano Sun 08 Oct 06 and flew on the Monday in brilliant sunshine for as many hours as we could be bothered. Russell's Report:- "Wessex Posse @ Luigi's office: weather fantastic: flying every day, accro Mike Adkins with RW trying to compete: Simon CW skygod: Charles the flying doctor: good time had by all." Mike's report:- "Lottsa grappa - lottsa flying - warm sunshine - no rain - wonderful flying - RW doing accro and Mike A doing accro (according to onlookers!) Many hours clocked up, especially for Simon CW. (NB All this "accro" stuff refers to various collapses handled by Mike and Russell respectively - we aren't really into accro!)

Report by Alastair Florence

It looked like it would have been flyable today and I was tempted to drive home via Milk Hill for a change, but its going in the wrong direction for the back end of the day really so went to Rifle Range again.

Perfect wind strength and good direction on the hill, the whole area was totally deserted except for shed fulls of black cows, not even a dog walker. Maybe had something to with a band of dark murky cloud out in front with a murk curtain hanging underneath. I got a fly in until I could feel the rain spots starting. Conditions were really nice apart from that. I then made the mistake of running back toward my car as I had plenty of height.

Had being the word, as soon as I was over the back I sunk like a lead balloon and within seconds didn't really have enough height to turn into wind safely. As I was doing about 30mph down wind though it seemed worth a try, I was now aiming at a fence and some of the black cows. Fortune smiled on me though as the last 20ft of decent were a little more bouyant and allowed me to complete my turn into wind and miss the cows. Cows had the last laugh though as I had an unplanned spot landing on a cow pat, slipped and ended up with a flying suit smeared with sh 1 t.

But hey thats paragliding, worth a 4 just for the craick.

Report by Alastair Florence

I worked late at Eling tide Mill last night so gave myself an early finish today. SE wind at Andover so headed back via Mere Rifle range. Arrived to find it strong on the ground with several pilots suffering ground suck but one wing in the air and doing ok. I decided the strong wind on t/o was just compression and joined James already airborne. The wind soon mellowed and 4 - 5 of us flew. Only really the SE facing slope was working but the Southerly launch was triggering some small thermals although the air was maybe a bit rotored here. It turned into one of those lightish but really smooth bouyant bouncy soft sort of evenings, not masses of height but very pleasant. Peachometer reading a comfortable 6 by the end of the session.

Report by John Funnell

A short movie on my last trip to San Diego:

http://stage6.divx.com/members/21124/videos/1006159

Report by Mike Adkins

Arrived on Bell elevenish to find Derek S flying his model aeroplane in a brisk breeze, which was touching 18 mph. We had put Russell off and decided it was too strong, when along came a visiting skygod from The Lakes, Martin Sandwith. (Hope I've got your name right - my memory is about as good as my ground-handling these days!) He had declared a goal of 57km to just this side of Winchester, and within minutes had executed a beautiful strong-wind launch with his Boomerang Sport (As & Ds) and gone! (We subsequently learned that he's about 29th in the British Nationals. ) So Derek and I thought we'd better have a go too. I got 40mins and Derek probably a bit longer, but I can't pretend I found it relaxing! By now the wind was very west, Martin had been retrieved by his well-trained (and attractive) retrieve-driver after some 23km and was ready to go again: Mike Bennett had flown twice and wished he hadn't bothered: Paul H and Neil H had arrived but didn't seem too keen. At this point Derek and I left. I noticed the wind eased later, but whether it had enough north in it to make Bell an attractive proposition, only another report can tell.

Report by Alastair Florence

Bell Hill - Late evening - strong - gusty - off to West - but never the less flyable - Harry D, Keith B, Chap with XIX smile (sorry dont know your name, but tell me next time you see me) and Martin visiting from the lakes with Boomerang.

Rating 2. 5 (only gets the 0. 5 because I wasn't sitting on the hill for ages waiting for it to calm a bit)

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