Land of Castles and Lions

Josh and I made the 15 km drive to El Barco de Avila to see it’s castle.  We walked around the castle but, as all good castles are, it was impenetrable.  No unlocked doors, no windows, no way to see inside. 

The atmosphere on launch is interesting. It feels more like an international fly-in now.  Some pilots still have the vigor to fly big distances while others are more subdued and content to stay close to home.  An impromptu task is usually called by our new self-appointed task committee, Yassen.  

The task for yesterday was a triangle around the Barco Valley. The interesting thing is that the turnpoints were only suggestions with alternates in case progress became difficult with the winds predicted.  That decision was to be made once everyone was in the air and on task. The idea was to have fun, stay together and fly xc.   Having multiple turnpoint options led to some pretty interesting happenings.  I asked Josh later in the day if he had won the task.  He responded “yes” with the disclaimer that he thought he might have flown a different task then everyone else but was pretty sure he was “WINNING!!!”  

Jack capitalized on the wind and flew with it to the pass at Tournavacas.  As for me, I was on task to see what was in that castle!

I found myself pretty low after leaving the ridge and finally managed to climb back out and was on my way.  In the distance I could see the castle, only two maybe three more climbs and I’d be there.   As I caught the next climb I realized this one would drift me right over the top  I laughed out loud and said to the sky “of course” as I peered into the castle to find nothing but an empty courtyard.  Again, paragliding proving to be a metaphor for life.

It reminded me of a conversation I’ve had many times with a certain someone, he knows who he is, about why we do this.  We do this because “we have to.”  Mostly, there is no great reward at the end.  Competition or not, we do this simply because we just “have to.”   Sometimes it’s uncomfortable.  Sometimes the reward is nothing tangible . But we are here doing this because we have to, it’s who we are.  I for one and still happy to be here in Spain.

Melanie

Too Late at the Party

Yesterday was a day of recovery.  It was too windy to fly so everyone was catching up on sleep and life back home via email and Skype.  The crowd of pilots is thinning more each day and that really drives it home that it’s over before it began.  

Because of the lack of available seats on earlier flights back home, the US team is somewhat “captive” here.  Much of the competition organization is still here providing retrieve and logistical help to the remaining pilots.  I’m starting to get the feeling we have stayed a bit too long at the party.  We are that guy who just won’t go home already and is beginning to make the host uncomfortable.  Pretty soon it will just be us and the organization.  We are gonna win this competition one way or another!

Today we all woke ready for some flying.   A quick check of the weather proved very disappointing.  We all had a good laugh when we realized that we were in the only unflyable area in all of Spain.

After taking care of some business and saying adieu to Brad, who is off to Barcelona, we loaded into the rig and headed to the neighboring town of Salamanca.

Salamanca is known for it’s university, it’s 2 cathedrals (the New and the Old) and Plaza Mayor, “the living room of Salamanca.”   We had just enough time, between dodging the rain and a deadline to get back to Piedrahita, to see a few of the sites.

Rob waiting out the rain in front of the  "House of Shells"

Plaza Mayor

View of the cathedral from the Old Roman Bridge (1st  century B.C.)

And then it rained on the plain in Spain.......

Melanie

Back in the Saddle

Well after struggling for days in the river of emotion in Piedrahita, looking up constantly to some of the nicer XC skies we've ever seen, it was finally time to get airborne again yesterday for some free flying.  The organizers are still supporting all the pilots who have remained with retrieve and live trackers, so seemed an ideal time to see if we could make some distance.

The day was a bit off from the past several, but still had some forecast downwind potential.  Things were rather difficult at first with weak climbs and just all around slow conditions, but the reach of the R11 allowed me to stay in the game until things switched on.  Gliders were pretty much scattered everywhere by that time so I ended up going solo initially which I was really hoping to avoid.  My plan to fly with Josh quickly evaporated as he got away to the pass before I did....

It took awhile to get above 2000 meters and finally off on a nice glide. My next climb began with my first major collapse on a 2 liner - after almost 250 hours.  It was an extremely violent thermal which completely balled up the glider.  I tucked and brought the B toggles momentarily down to my chest  - kind of a default position, and things progressed and recovered nicely from there.

At Avila I got low and wasn't seeing much in tailwinds so considered landing or making my way back to Piedrahita.  I stayed with it awhile longer and found a nice climb to the limit "3048 meters", a number you become infinitely familiar with here when flying xc in this area.  At the top of climb I found some tail wind and the day was turning on so decided to take advantage of the retrieve and see what I could make of it.

From there it was just a beautiful XC flight on a NE track from Avila, about 245k.  Joined up with some French pilots for awhile, but they took off on a Northerly track as they were "flying" towards home and would just land and join their team vehicles.  Lots of fun flying with sailplanes and endless beautiful scenery. Plenty of birds to share the climbs with as well. Got to really enjoy the full potential of the glider and made good time considering the conditions and never got low between climbs.  My normal physiological "hook up" proved invaluable as I was able to drink my entire water bag over the 7+ hour flight and enjoy staying nice and hydrated.  A Goo every hour or so is minimal but does the trick.

Brad joined  in with many pilots and finished first with a 60k fun task set around the Piedrahita area and had the only important outcome - to finish ahead of Yasson Savov!  Josh made the challenging out and return to Avila and back to Piedrahita.  Melanie logged some massive out and return kilometers as well!

I think Piedrahita being an "afternoon site" is somewhat of an understatement!  We were getting easy climbs to 3000 meters after 8pm, and landed at 9:30pm after a boaty final glide which seemed to go on forever in the mix of sunset and moonrise.  Joined up with Luxemburg pilot Greg Knudson for the last few hours and we enjoyed the remainder of the flight together.  Retrieve following and regular surface wind reports from Jeff made for pretty much the dream XC flight in one of the world's premier flying sites.... A huge "Respect" and thanks to Jeff and Rob and all who made this Spain trip possible despite the very sad outcome...

Jack

Big Day for Team USA!!!

Hello Everyone,

Team USA had a great day of flying yesterday.  The organization was providing live tracking and chase support for pilots wanting to stay and free fly.  The winds were over the back when we turned the corner as launch came into view.  As we pulled into the parking lot and grabbed our gear out of the van it started blowing in nicely.

Everybody got their gear ready, and Steve and Calvo held a pilots meeting.  Steve talked about the light south winds which were expected, and pilots picked up their live trackers.  Yassen and Raul Penso called a 60K triangle, which Brad decided he would use for training.  The rest of team USA was looking at doing some distance since the Team America van was dedicated to the chase.

Josh was first off followed by Jack, Melanie, and Brad.  Huey and I had a full tank of gas and were ready to see what kind of distance the team could get to the NE.  There were a few pilots who had some bad luck in the first pass and ended up getting low and missing connecting, and Melanie was one of them.  Huey and I were better off at this point because as we learned on day one of the competition, chase is way better with Melanie on board.

Meanwhile back toward Piedrahita a good size group of pilots were running the 60 triangle. Yassen was telling us all on launch that the boys from the Balkans were going to take the day on the task.  We explained to Yassen that Team America would not be letting the Balkan Bombers succeed in this mission.  Yassen is a great guy, and did a load of work before they cancelled the competition trying to develop a plan to present with many others here that would allow us to continue.   Brad ended up winning that task, and had fun giving Yassen a hard time about it. 

The Team America chase van saw Jack about half way between Avila and Segovia as we continue to the NE.  Josh had tagged Avila and decided on doing the out and return, and he was the only pilot to make it all the way back  to the main LZ here in Piedrahita after tagging Avila.  The head wind was significant coming back to Piedrahita especially though the final pass, but Josh pulled it off.

Jack and Luxembourg pilot Greg Knudsen had hooked up on the way to Segovia on course line, and ended up flying together the rest of the way.  I’m going to let Jack blog on the flight, and give you the exact distance and details.  I will tell you they landed together at 9:21pm and had flown about 245K. Greg Knudsen was nice enough to buy the chase crew dinner on the way home.  We rolled back into Piedrahita at just after 2:30am. The site record from launch here in Piedrahita heading that direction is 255K so they almost got it.

I have some photos I will post later on today.

Rob Sporrer

Co-Team Leader

Death Ships?

There has been some intense discussion over the last few days here in Piedrahita and online.  The flavor of those discussions is quite different, partly because the CIVL has only given selective information so far to the public.  The text below gets a bit dense but I hope you find it interesting and I promise some photos at the end.

First I should say that I hate seeing people get hurt or killed at competitions or free flying, or cycling or climbing mountains.  The first fatality I saw at a paragliding competition was not actually part of the competition.  It was a free flyer doing sloppy wingovers in front of a launch at 12,000'.  It really was terrible, even though it had no direct connection to the competition.  It has likewise been very sad to witness the friends of the two fallen pilots mourning this week.

On the other hand those of us here have noticed that the outside world seems to have received an incomplete picture of goings-on here.  Much of the attention has focused, understandably, on the two fatal accidents and the experience level of those pilots.  However, the decision by CIVL was almost certainly made based on analysis of all of the serious incidents.  I haven't seen the reports, but it has become clear over the last two days of mourning that there are a significant number of pilots here who don't have the hours on 2-liners to handle them safely in this environment.  There are even some who are on a 2-liner as their first comp glider.  These facts were not clear to us when we voted to continue the competition.  Knowing it now I understand the decision by CIVL, even though I don't like the way it was made and announced.

There is a feeling among many of us who have been flying 2-liners for hundreds of hours without incident that we are being unfairly tarred as reckless and the gliders painted as death ships.  I could understand that conclusion if the first competitions with many 2-liners had unusually high incident rates.  But a whole season went by without seeing that, at least in the meets I was at.  That could actually be part of the problem.  Initially we were quite nervous about the new gliders and gave them a lot of respect.  But lately it seems that pilots have gotten used to the idea of 2-liners and we have seen pilots going from serial gliders to 2-liners.

If we are to make changes to improve safety it's important to know the facts and not make assumptions before trying to design cures.  Part of the problem we see here is an unintended consequence of the last attempt at a safety cure.  It began last year when CIVL decided something had to be done about competition safety and started a process that resulted in complex new rules - essentially a quasi-certification procedure for comp gliders.  This meant that the manufacturers only made this time-consuming certification (with a few exceptions) for the most in-demand gliders, which were 2-liners.  This meant that competitors mainly had to choose between EN D and 2-liners.  They could either be competitive or not at all competitive.  There was no choice to be somewhat competitive on a 3-line comp glider.  This had the unforeseen consequence of pushing some number of pilots to fly a 2-liner for the first time.

It is a whole other question whether serial gliders should be the future direction of the sport.  I won't address that now as it's been well gone over elsewhere and I want to get some sleep before going flying tomorrow.

Oh yes, here are some photos from the two tasks and practice day: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joshcohn/sets/72157627003416283/

Josh

Competition Cancelled

Hello All,

Most of you have heard by now the competition has been cancelled.  We have not posted in the past couple days as we have been in limbo regarding the future of this event.  Much of our time was dedicated to our failed attempt in finding solutions to convince the FAI and CIVL to allow us to continue.

Our team and the majority of the teams here are exasperated with their decision.  We have strong opinions of specific matters which we will share in upcoming posts.  Our time recently has been spent discussing this matter with the other teams and pilots from around the world. Most are leaving so we have been spending time with each other before everyone goes their separate ways.

There was a memorial for the fallen pilots here last night.  They will be doing the closing ceremonies here this afternoon.  Our current plan is to stay for at least a few days and hopefully get our team some big distance flights at this world class site.  We promise to begin blogging and keep you updated on our flying here as well as our opinions on what has transpired.

Thank you for all your support!

Rob Sporrer

Co-Team Leader

Bradley Gunnuscio

‎@ Everyone thankyou so much for all your love and support.... We lost 2 friends yesterday, they will be forever missed. They both died doing what they love to do, and I am sure they are flying higher than we could ever dream of waiting at the top of the thermals for us. My sincere condolences go out to Eitel von Muhlenbrock and Francisco Vargas's family and friends.... May you rest in peace my brothers!!