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Hangola May 22, 2001

Well, here's a flying report. St. Hilaire du Touvet, Saturday the 19th of May:
Arrived at St. Hilaire around 10 am with my sister and niece in tow. Found Alain Jacques teaching some students in a field/slope where they have a cable hooked up for the brand new students to fly down on and to pull the gliders back up for all the students. Great arrangement. He told me to meet up with Bob, the other instructor, at 2 pm. Which I did after having a nice hike back up from the valley, after taking the tram down. (The reverse of what most tourists do.) It's a nice 2.4K vertical distance. Took me 55 minutes and my sister and niece about twice that.

Conditions were looking decent for flying that afternoon. Headed for the launch after trying on a couple of knee-hanger style harnesses and some helmets. I also borrowed a vario (Flytec). Set up the Tecma Mambo and had a good launch. Headed down the ridge towards the paraglider launch and worked lift to about 1500 over. Nice air. Was in one double thermal with about 3 paragliders and 2 other hang gliders. Very complicated watching both groups circle (in different directions). After about an hour and a half, I was getting a little cold (should have borrowed some gloves since it wasn't that warm) so I top landed. Came in a little high so put the knees on the basetube to pull in hard and dropped that baby right down in the field. The two other pilots already there said that at first they thought I was a beginner pilot (partial double surface glider and kneehanger harness), and wondered what I was doing top landing (since only experienced pilots are supposed to do that) and when they saw me use the knees on the basetube, they really wondered what was going on.

My niece said she wanted to take a tandem the next day then spent the whole evening sweating about it. She's not into heights at all (despite being 5'10" herself). The next morning she was on launch, obviously nervous. Bob, her pilot in command, explained to her what to expect, that he would first make sure she was ok to go and then he would count 3-2-1 and run off. They did a practice run first. Well, when he got on launch and asked her if she was ok, she said yes and he then said 3-2-1 and started running. She apparently didn't realize that the question about being ok was THE question about being ok and wasn't mentally ready for the fun off. (This launch is almost verticle.) She screamed like a stuck pig "NO, BOB" and was not running. He drug her off. I was howling. It was too funny. (The launch is practically idiot proof - one of the best I've seen.) The landing was ok, although they landed in a little muddy area so Katie got her jeans mudded up some.

My sister (her mom) then decided she wanted to take a tandem so that afternoon it was arranged with Alain as her instructor. He's been doing it for over 20 years and having figured she'd watched it all in the morning, all he did was get my sister over, hook her in, get on the ramp, go to the edge, lean forward and they were off. No screaming. He had a perfect landing.

That night after a nice dinner at the pilot hotel, I had a chartreuse (liqueur) which is made just over the hill from the launch area. Katie had a rum and coke. (My sister and I had shared a half carafe of wine at dinner and we'd all had a couple of demi pressions before dinner.) Then another pilot who'd asked for our help in pushing his van (dead battery) sent over free drinks for me and Katie (the niece). Then I had another chartreuse before Katie turned me on to the drink called a Mudslide. (Bailey's, Kalua, cream, vodka, no pain) She and I had a couple of those before I quit drinking. She kept going - even got behind the bar and was helping the bartender make them up. I left the bar, totally lit, at 1 am. My sister had left long before. Katie didn't find her way back upstairs until 3 am. Then next day she was supposed to be the driver, for at least part of the day, on our trek to Aix-en-Provence. I wasn't feeling too bad so I did the 6 hours (back roads through beautiful countryside). Katie was still feeling awful so didn't have dinner with my sister and I (and with a little wine) in Aix. The weather in Aix is cloudy, not the usual sun. But we'd had plenty of that in St. Hilaire. We're going to be going back thru St. Hilaire next weekend so I'll have another chance to get some more airtime. This is really the place to come if you don't want to lug your harness. It's also paraglider heaven with a huge take off area separate from the hang gliding launches. (There are 2 paraglider launches.) We got to see a blown PG launch, but the bushes below it 'protect' the pilot somewhat, so only the ego gets bruised.

A la prochaine,
Christy

Cragin S. wrote:
Okay, so how come we get more reports from pilots on a day when we DON'T fly than when we do?? This is gonna make for a long Hangola page with lots of "Didn't Fly"'s

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This page last updated May 22, 2001