| Flight details: | After Brian Steele's visit to St Andre on Thursday, I nipped down to Greolieres on Friday morning. After a cup of tea at the landing field we hiked up to the 300 launch to be joined by a few locals, including tandem pilots from the school and Charlie King of Cross Country fame.
Brian seemed to stay up easily, but radioed down that he wasn't enjoying the turbulent air, with a fair bit of east in it (the hill faces south). Funnily, this made me more relaxed, as I felt that landing early, either through choice or through bombing, would be no disgrace. I found it sporty but not horrible as I scraped up enough height to cross the quarry. At the far side I found a climb, rough at first, that took me all the way to 2040m, above the top of the mountain (launch is just over 1000m).
The run to Coursegoules was on -- a cruise, it seemed, especially as high up the easterly seemed to have become a westerly. But at the ridge's eastern end I looked back and was struck by how, although I was still above the ridge, it had sloped down so that I was now well below the height I'd need to get home.
Even low down the promised easterly seemed to have disappeared. I eyed landing options at Coursegoules and even halfway up the mountain, and at the col I turned back feared I'd blown it as Brian, ahead of me, soared up in the convergence. But just after I turned the easterly suddenly turned up. I scraped over the col and found the convergence myself. Still I needed 6.9 to 1 to make the landing field, while often getting 4 or 5, but another rough climb put it into the bag. I had enough height to take a trip out towards Cipieres before landing for the best salade nicoise of my life, and a nice chat with two charming English ladies of the village. |
