Wiltshire Air Ambulance

Firstly Nick Somerville is raising money for the Wiltshire Air Ambulance by running the London Marathon this year. Those of you who know Nick will know that he’s a very good runner – he’s aiming for a time of 2hrs 45mins! Pretty impressive for an old man like him

Nick dressed for flying rather than running...

Please visit his JustGiving page and help him achieve his target of raising £2000.

Facing Africa

Second is Mike Coupe, who’s a consultant anaesthetist and is currently doing two weeks voluntary work at a hospital in Addis Abeba in Ethiopia for a charity called Facing Africa.

Mike in action in Ethiopia

Facing Africa’s main work is doing reconstructive facial surgery for victims of the terribly disfiguring disease, Noma. Please visit their website and make a donation to support their amazing work.

Well done both of you!

The next thing you notice is the usual Advance build quality and attention to detail – from the innovative reserve zip release to the new safety system which means you can’t take off without a least one leg strap done up. It really is beautifully made…

Too bad it's not mine...

Obviously I haven’t flown it, but it does feel very comfortable and the default strap settings seemed perfect for me (I’m 6’4″). You get the impression that it’s more aerodynamic with its boxy shape deflecting the wind up and over the pilot more than other pod harnesses.

Sadly it’s a bit too expensive to expect Santa to leave me one under the tree so I guess it’s time to start saving

The all new Alpha 5

Visit the Advance website for more information…

We arrived at about midday having negotiated the tiny lane down to the beach, and were greated by the sight of three gliders already flying – always encouraging! It was a gentle ten minute walk up to the clifftop takeoff to the east of the car park (£3/day), and once there we were given an excellent site briefing from D&S Condors committee member, John ?

I wolfed down my sandwiches and pretty soon was in the air following ex Avon member Tom Arnold across the small gap to the bigger cliffs to the west of take off (Thorncombe Beacon and Doghouse Hill). These first hills are 470′ high and needless to say there was plenty of lift coming off them, allowing us to get to approx 600′ asl at this stage in the day.

Looking east from Golden Cap towards Doghouse Hill and Thorncombe Beacon

From Doghouse Hill it’s a 2km jump to Golden Cap across the tiny hamlet of Seatown (not to be confused with the bigger Seaton further west along the coast past Lyme Regis), however because the wind was SW’ly at this stage the cliffs and ridge on the east side of Golden Cap (626′) weren’t working and so I edged round the point with my heart slightly in my mouth whilst barely maintaining my 150′ or so above the sea. I needn’t have worried though because once onto the SSW facing cliffs there was gentle lift and after maybe five minutes I was waving to the walkers at the top of the hill.

I waited for Shamus Pitts to catch up and then with about 700′ or so we decided to go for the 5km transaition to Charmouth…

Shamus makes the first move towards Charmouth

There were a couple of gliders in the air over Charmouth – I yelled across to one of them and found out they’d taken off from there. He said that the trick for getting back was to work you way onto the higher cliff at the back and get a bit of height before setting off. In the event with the wind coming from slightly behind us it was an easy run back to Golden Cap. By now the wind had picked up a knot or two and 800′ was possible above Golden Cap in the silky smooth lift.

Looking east from Golden Cap

It’s 5km from Golden Cap to West Bay and it was another easy run all the way there. Shamus decided he’d push on to the cliffs on the other side of the harbour but I wimped out thinking I’d never make it back again unless the wind picked up. Turns out I was right as Shamus didn’t quite get back, but full marks for trying!

West Bay

So having done the ridge run once I then went on to do it twice more, interspacing them with chilling out in the super smooth lift which was now lettting you climb to 1,100′ in places, a bit of airborne tweeting (Edit: thanks for reminding me about that Dec!), and a brief pit stop at Doghouse Hill to answer a call of nature, put another layer on, and have a bite to eat! Mike and I did the final run together before playing a new version of “chicken” – flying out to sea and seeing who bottled it first! Turns out I was the chicken I think as although I’ve got a better glide angle than him we both wimped out at pretty much the same place

Chilled out views from 1,100' asl...

I spent the last twenty minutes or so playing low down on the beach at Eype, since by now the wind had increased a little bit more making it brilliant for a bit of gentle wagga before finally landing at about 5pm to a round of applause after more or less five hours in the air!

So with that much airtime at least if we don’t get any more decent flying this year at I’ll still be happy!

Have a look at the short video I’ve put together which gives a pretty good idea of what the flying is like here, and if you haven’t made the trip down to Eype I’d thoroughly recommend you do so soon!

Showing the different takeoffs at Norma

Here’s a stunning film that shows what a beautiful place this is to fly…

For more details please get in touch with Gavin directly.

Meanwhile Shamus Pitts, who had flown earlier, quietly took off and although it took a few moments for him to penetrate forwards, he showed us that it was possible! James Lynch was off in the next lull, and I followed him a minute later, easily penetrating forwards, and going up nicely at the same time. In fact I pushed forward almost 1km and was probably 500′ ato before I stopped going up! (NB. Pushing forward is always a good plan for maximising your xc league distance!)

Shamus had already left the hill by the time James and I took off, and we were keen to follow in his footsteps. I headed back to the hill and after a few minutes we were both climbing nicely in a 1-2 m/s thermal and ten minutes later we were 4km downwind at base at 4,400′. The climb improved on the way up – by the end I was averaging 2.5-3 m/s! We both separately went into cloud and so I headed slightly to the west to give James a wide berth. By the time I saw him again he was quite a way to the north of me and by the time I reached Piddletrenthide he was 1/2 km north of me and 1,500′ higher

However this was where our luck changed and I got a lovely climb over Piddletrenthide back up to base (and beyond – 4,900′) whilst James hit some horrible sink and fought bravely between 2000-3000′ for 10km or so before landing just past Milborne St Andrew for 20km.

At base some 12km downwind after a nice climb from Piddletrenthide

From here for the next 15km all the way to Bovington I never got below 3,900′ so it was a very relaxing if cold stage of the flight.

Approaching Bovington Camp and still nice and high

Then there was a 8km glide across a blue patch to where I saw a sailplane thermalling nicely somewhere just south of the A352 between Wool and Wareham, and although he’d long gone by the time I got there I found a nice climb back up to 4,600′. Again it was a strong themal with climb rates of 2-2.5 m/s.

Back at base again south of Wareham enjoying the wonderful views

At this point with goal in sight I was feeling pretty relaxed and took some video and a couple of self portraits…

Does my nose look big in this?

Looking back along the Jurrasic Coast to Weymouth and Portland

I wafted along under this cloud for a good 5km or more by which time Swanage was 12km or so away and clearly achievable on a glide from this height. And it was about at this point that I received a text from Nick saying that no one else had flown as it had remained windy and that he was coming to get me – top man! I think he was surprised when I phoned him from the air to say I was approaching Swanage!

Swanage in sight!

More wonderful views!

At this point I was starting to think about landing options in Swanage, in particular not getting blown out to sea!

Very close now - I landed on the grassy point to the right of the picture

I did a 360 over the playing field in the foreground to check my into-wind speed and found that I was doing about 10-15 kph, so I decided to head to the grassy point to maximise my distance (and, more importantly, be closer to an ice cream vendor!).

The actual landing (to the applause of a group of onlookers) was very straightforward and I never felt in any danger of ending up swimming! I then proceeded to demonstrate a forward launch to a couple of interested blokes, and talked them through all my kit, so it was a while before I was fully packed up and able to enjoy the traditional ice cream!

It just has to be done!

So, thanks to the couple in the camper van who gave me a lift to Corfe Castle where I met Nick in the Castle Inn for a pint, and to Nick for coming to pick me up – it was much appreciated, especially as it must have been galling seeing me on cloud nine when he hadn’t flown.

Fingers crossed this is the start of summer rather than the end of the season!

More photos here.

Tracklog here.

XC and general flying:

XC flying to goal:

COMP – pre-start:

COMP – post-start:

“Dist Edge” gives you the distance to the edge or the cylinder, rather than the distance to the centre of the turnpoint.

“Speed Start” tells you the speed you need to fly at in order to cross the start cylinder at exactly the right time. Once it gets above your trim speed you can head for the start!

“Arrival Goal” estimates the height you’ll arrive over the goalfield based on your current glide ratio. Not to be confused with “A OverGoal” which tells you your current height above the goalfield.

* “Ave Speed” – don’t think this is very useful but not sure what else is any more useful! Suggestions please

Vario settings

• Sink threshold: -1.0 m/s (changed from -2.0 – silence is nice, but not too much!)
• Climb threshold: 0.1 m/s
• Sink alarm: 0 m/s (0 = off)

I hope this helps you make a start when setting up your UDFs. I’m not saying this is the perfect combination, but it seems to work for me. Let me know what you use by posting a comment…

The answer – a fantastic 68km race to goal including a trip to the Morgon (much less intimidating with lots of company!), two turnpoints on the opposite side of the valley which were pretty hard going, then a nice blast down the Dormillouse ridge and back before landing at goal.

The first few to take off slowly climb out

The race started at 1530 and I was in a good position in the top third of the field for much of the first half of the race.

Heading to the Morgon

This gives a good sense of scale of the huge W face of the Morgon

Gliding back to the Dormillouse

However I was low getting to TP4 (B20) and got stuck there for 30 mins losing valuable time and places. I eventually found a climb which got me high enough to join Jimmy Piper on his Delta on the small ridge behind.

This ridge saved my bacon on a number of days!

Working together we climbed out pretty quickly in a lovely 2.5-3 m/s thermal which took us up to 2600m from which it was an easy glide back onto the Dormillouse.

Thermalling with Jimmy

From here we were home and dry – it was spectacular cruising along the ridge in the late afternoon sunshine and a really memorable way to end what’s been a great week’s flying.

Heading back along the ridge to a TP at the far end

My race time was 3hrs 17mins (slow – 49th into goal) but because I made it to goal on both tasks, I actually did pretty well coming 43rd overall and 5th in Sports class.

In goal!

And what about the comp being Serial gliders only? Bloody fantastic! There was none of the comp gliders blasting off not to be seen again until they headed into goal when everyone else was only two thirds of the way round the course! It made the whole event much fairer and more fun, and I think the open class pilots who were forced to beg, borrow or steal serial gliders enjoyed it too, with John Ellison saying it was much more like a PWC with everyone on the same class of gliders.

Mark "Wagga" Watts is the 2011 British Paragliding Champion

More photos from the task here.

Oh well, pas de probleme, Hugh and I had a mission, and that was to fly to the Morgon – a massive lump of rock to the north of the Dormillouse. We climbed up to 2800m at the Dormillouse then pushed out over St Vincent towards the Morgon. It’s not until you get there that you realise just how big it is and just how small you are! There’s something about big lumps of rock that make me more than just a bit aprehensive!

Hugh is just a tiny spec against the massive rocky bulk of the Morgon

I called Hugh up on the radio as he headed over the Morgon itself – he said he was bricking himself – I replied that I was glad I wasn’t the only one

Hugh looking calmer than he felt as he flies over the Morgon!

We got a nice climb over the very top and climbed back up to 2800m again and decided we’d had enough of this heart-in-the-mouth stuff, waiting for, but thankfully not getting, a good kicking, so we headed back to the known quantity of the Dormillouse!

Cruising back to the friendly Dormillouse

I arrived back at a good height and found a lovely climb with took me up nice and high again, so I headed out to turnpoint B20 (TP1 in yesterday’s task). I had a lovely glide over there with a beautiful thermal half way to it, however the last 1km was in horrible sink and I arrived at the TP where I was sure it should be working but was left sadly disappointed! I didn’t bother hanging around and headed back basically following the contours of the land until I was eventually forced to land a couple of kms from the St Jean landing field.

So, another day in which we failed to have a task, but another day when I had a great flight!

More photos from this flight here.