As I'm currently "funemployed" and am lucky enough to have access to cheap flights enabling day trips to the alps when conditions look really worthwhile across a range of forecasting models (soaringmeteo, windy, meteoblue and chamonix meteo)
The forecast was for lightish winds and base at 4000m, but the wind was from the north (not good for the Brevant, as it is then rougher than a badgers arse when from the north and can be a little stronger than forecast, especially if taking off a little late). Given 38*c was predicted, I figured it would be inverted to hell in the bigger/lower valleys, so that ruled out Annecy too…
I therefore went to Grand Bornand and could see a couple of people already skied out when I arrived and many more on takeoff. I headed up excitedly, but was a bit concerned seeing about 8 pilots coming down on the chairlift with their wings.
As I arrived on the chair, someone took off from low down on the south takeoff and immediately climbed, but the wing was not stable above the pilots head and the ground speed visibly increased more as he flew out from the hill and then more so as he got higher.
Unsurprising give the wind where we were was 20kmh from the north.
On the positive side, base was at about 3500 and wings in the air near it. I chose to head to the north side as there was no way I wanted to launch into sketchy rotory crap!
There were a small bunch gathering and one of the pilots asked Florian, the French airdesign importer based in Annecy what he thought as he was getting ready. He explained that he glad was glad to have his mountain mountain wing, as there was no way he'd fly his 2 liner in this… He thought it would be super rough and turbulent and he'd never launched from the north side before… At this point, most of the other pilots turned round and headed for the lift, leaving about 6 of us on launch…
I decided I would wait and see what happened to Florian, who launched okay and made the air look reasonable.
The north launch is very steep and rocky, so you are almost committed to launching the moment you pull your glider up beyond 45*. I had done a very careful inspection before bunching and getting onto the face, but in the process had picked up a few twigs which a couple of the other pilots helped remove, they also helped spread my wing for me. I kept it under control by B line stalling it and then slowly kited it up in a semi stalled manner and all seemed well, so I released and turned. As I did, I took an immediate moderate collapse on my right side, but was moving forward and launched…
Unfortunately the collapse only partially popped out, leaving me with a cravat and a knot on my right side pulling me back towards the scree slope slightly downwind… Still out of the harness I used as much weight shift as I could and as little brake as I could to turn away from the hill.
Once away I gave the brake a couple of sharp strong pumps (they really work) that cleared the cravat, but not the knot on the stabilo and the B's which was still significantly deforming the wing. Once further out and in slightly smoother air, I gave the stabilo a few yanks that cleared the knot.
Relieved, I headed around to the south of Lachat to the north facing slope on the other side of the valley where I met up with Florian. We climbed to around 2500m together where we hit the first inversion. He headed NE towards that end of the Aravis, I didn't as I felt that going close to big steep mountains in that wind was not something I had the skills or inclination to do! I then found a strong climb that took me to 3200m, but I left as flyskyhy was now indicating the wind to be 20kmh which had been steadily increasing with altitude (the graph windspeed indicator on flyskyhy is really useful! )
At this point, I decided that the best option was to get down a bit lower and assess again. Once under the inversion at 2500, the wind noticeably dropped, but was still from the north/NE all the way to the ground.
Once at 1600m, I decided that it was worth using the opportunity to do some proper thermalling practice as per tom Payne's lecture (brilliant) here really using the speed range and turning tight in strong bits of lift and as I did so, remembering that is exactly what I had previously done in my very first years of flying, but had stopped due to the fear of spinning the glider…
Unfortunately, xcleague doesn't allow URLs, so here is the code to put after youtube.
/watch? V=LlEH4B8xElc.
Anyway, it worked and as I climbed the lift really improved and i was now going up at over 4m/s. However, the wind had also increased to 25kmh and I was only at 2500m, so ran away from the lift thinking sod this for a game of soldiers I want to get out of the sky now!
I headed out into the valley and spiralled down and headed for the landing field, but once above was a little concerned that conditions had now got to be quite serious. There was the meteo wind (NNE), 2 valley winds (ENE/WSW) (should always be west, but the meteo wind was boosting the Easterly one) and most bizarrely at times a straight southerly at the landing field. To make matters worse, the 3 flags in the field were clearly blowing strongly in 3 directions at once. The only positive was I couldn't see any signs of dusties!
I chose to try and loose height to the north of the landing field as that seemed to give me the most options and after a rollercoaster ride down, chose to land towards the west as the flag at that end had been fairly consistently pointing in that direction and my drift was mostly that way.
Unfortunately, I hadn't counted on sods law and the wind switched 180* as I turned final, causing the glider to dive. It was clear there was no way I was going to be able to flare out in time, so against my normal judgement, slipped back into my harness and used as much brake as possible slow my descent. It worked and I skimmed over the grass for some distance (I was still moving fast) before my wing dropped down under tension in front of me.
Next in was Florian who got lucky with his timing and landed perfectly, but who's first words were "I have no £$^%ing idea, what was going on with the weather, crazy strong winds from every direction, landing was not fun. " i responded by going and shaking his hand and thanking him for making me not feel like I was a moron.
We then watched an M4 and Iota try and come in, worryingly (in my eyes) the Iota pilot decided to use big ears and did so, until he hit nasty air released and found himself with a small cravat and being whisked up 100m or so.
*I am against big ears in those circumstances as you do not have full brake authority and when being thrown around and the wind switching you need it, a frontal at that altitude could easily result in a cascade to the ground.
The M4 pilot was now down below 100m, but swearing audibly as he and his wing were being thrown all over the place. The wind was now up to 15kmh in all directions… Once at around 50m or maybe less he tried to follow my route in, only to be snatched back up a couple of hundred metres.
Sensibly, he abandoned trying to land where we were and headed off to a much bigger field to the WNW and landing easily in that direction…
We all packed up and agreed it was lucky that no one was hurt on landing.
On reflection, taking off was a little marginal, the flying where I went was safe enough and the fact I made the decision at exactly the same time as Florian shows some element of good judgement.
However, I made one big mistake which was to land in the official landing, I considered landing further up the valley, but didn't as being nearer the car was more convenient and I didn't fancy walking in 38*C with my paraglider on my back. Although it all ended well, had I been 5 feet lower when I made my final turn, I could easily now be badly broken in a hospital bed…