Here is an account, in Paul’s own words, of an impressive spring flight, which he says, “didn’t just fall from the sky”! Check out his tracklog here.
The idea stemmed from a meeting regarding airspace in northern France, where I discovered the open pathway between Paris and Lille to reach the coastline from Létanne, in the region of Champagne-Ardenne. A week later, the forecast promised the first real spring flying conditions with an east wind. With the challenge still fresh in my mind, but of course too early in the season to attain such a distance, I detect (as many others) that this is the day not to miss. I organized retrieve driver – I have to be at work the next day at 7:30 ready to perform surgery…
Upon arrival at the take-off, the first cumulus clouds appear and I quickly prepare myself for take-off. Appropriately, getting up an away is a easy but the flight for me and two other pilots is almost over after 10 Km. The promising cumulus fails us and we end up low, ready to land, not very proud… Luckily, we manage to emerge from the situation and I begin to consult my map and the flight corridor to the sea…
The cold conditions are penetrating, omnipresent for the duration of the flight; my fingertips are frozen in spite of my heated gloves. These conditions are probably responsible for Wim or Phil’s exhaustion, who share the same over-ambitious objective, the coast! Yet this objective keeps me going, motivates me to advance quickly, legs stretched and pushing the accelerator, only stopping in the strongest thermals.
I ignore the cold, neglect fatigue, and only think of keeping my retrieval informed of my position as I advance.
The flight occurs in 4 stages:
In the first stage, the cumulus clouds are …read more
Source: Ozone Paragliders