Towing meeting near Lausanne

Pascal Tournache went to switzerland, not for fiscal fraud reasons :) but to participate to a towing event near Lausanne by a beautiful saturday of june (which is not so often this year!). Below is his photo album:

2014 French F3F National Team Selection

F3F french National team for 2014 (World championship in Donovaly) is in progress and consists in taking the best 3 results over 4 contests among

•     The Pyrenees Cup
•     2 dedicated selection contests
•     The french champioship (end of august)

Results of each contest are ponderated by the number of rounds flown. This make the calculation much more tricky because we need to calculate for each pilot all the possible combination to identify the worse result contribution to exclude from the final ranking. Selection contest cannot go above 15 rounds in order to limit their weight against other normal contest with more pilots so less rounds. I know this is a bit complex, but the idea is to be fair.

Anyway, last week end was the first selection contest following the team 2013 training. For weather and autorization reasons, this constest took place in the south alps near Aspres sur Buech. 8 pilots took part to this contest.  We have been able to fly 12 rounds the first day. We got lots of crossed wind, but within the FAI limits so we had to do with. The second day unfortunately it rained the whole day so we couldn't complete the 3 extra rounds to reach the 15 rounds. Fast time of the day was 34s. Frederic Hours won the competition followed by Sebastien Lanes (both are in the 2013 team) and myself. 

Next selection contest will be mid-July at the col de tende at the border between Italy and France. The following photo Album is from Joël Marin as I was too busy with the competition to take pictures in addition. Thanks Joël

Courtesy of Joël Marin

F3F national team practice

French National team (from left to right): Sébastien Lanes (Pilot), Frédéric Hours (Pilot), Andreas Fricke (Pilot), in front Laurent Lombardo (Team Manager)

Last thursday and friday, I met with the french national F3F team 2013 for a practice and team building session as it was close to my home place. On Thursday, we went to the north slope of Corps but unfortenately were unable to fly as the wind was absent. For friday, we decided to go to Aspres sur Buech in the south alps, with the hope to get more wind and less thurnderstorms which was almost the case. We got some wind, a bit crossed but still OK, and later in the afternoon we could see some showers here and there around our mountain. The 3 pilots have been able to practice, with the course setted up despite the flying condition were not great... The next session will be end of July near Briançon for a day, preceding the league contest at the same place. Here are some pictures taken these 2 days:

Take Of Ardechois 2013

Weather continues to disturb the beginning of the F3F season in France. After the snow the previous week, this time was the strong wind. Ardéche is like the south Alps, plenty of nice F3F spot and windy place. Up to now, this competition was missing a good spot for north wind. Yves and I combined our effort to identify a new spot. I worked on google earth and geoportail (detailed maps) to identify a new slope. Yves visited them to validate the spot the week before the contest. Like this, we found a new promising slope, with very little walk. This where all the competitors went on Saturday 1st of June. Problem was the wind reaching 25m/s during gusts, even is the average was within the FAI limits. But this strong wind was creating huge rotors above the landing field. After a long wait, we decided to start the competition, doing 2 rounds in the same flight with a crow start in order to save one landing. We managed like this 2 rounds with very fast time, fatest time around 31s, and almost everybody under 40s. But we also had lot of damages during landing. The landing was totally unpredictable. Hopfully the grass was very high so could smooth the final impact !!!

On Sunday, forecast was saying less wind, bu this is the opposite that happened. this time gusts were reaching 31m/s with an average around 22m/s We waited again, then decided to give a try, at least to validate the contest (48 flights, 12 pilots minimum, this is the rule). But after 2 pilots, the organiser decided to stop the contest because it was obvious that is was too dangerous for the planes during the landing, but even in flight.

In these conditions, I flew my Needle 100 DSL almost full ballast, considering that its empty weight was 2.6kg. It flew great, very fast and stable.

Overall the area seems very promising and we have already found another North slope, even better with a cliff that we need to validate for next year. But definitvely, this region can become the best place to fly F3F in france. A big thanks to Yves Tirand for organising this event and working hard to find the best spot for us to enjoy !

Below is a video I did in order to give you an idea about how fast is this slope:


TOA 2013 from Pierre Rondel on Vimeo.

Towing meeting in Brignoles

Despite a crappy weather with up to 100 km/h of wind in the south east of France, surprisingly, in Brignoles near Marseille was only a gentle breeze and a blue sky. Therefore the conditions were perfect to meet for a towing session with friends. Pascal Tournache was there of course and share with us the following photo album:

The White Stork and the Shadow, the video

Olivier Bruni (Passions Aero) just posted his video, filmed the same day than the picture album posted few days ago. The secret of this story is that Olivier is in charge of the inventory of the white storks in this area. 

The video shows very well that birds are not disturbed at all by the RC sailplane. It would be good to show this video to the ecologist-extremists that often (always) claim the opposite !!!

Anyway, thanks Olivier for sharing with us this magic instant !

What a spring season !

This week end was the local F3F competition, part of the french league (Notre Dame de Vaulx). Despite the very bad weather forecast, some pilots came from far away (Auvergne, Alsace) hoping to fly anyway.

Thing were clearly annoucing very bad, as friday evening when the clouds cleared, we could see from GRenoble the mountain totally white with 5 to 10cm of snow on it. In the night of Friday to Saturday, more snow falled.

Saturday morning, it was impossible to reach the parking at the bottom of the slope, as there was too much snow on the road. The pilot meeting therefore moved to the village below. after some discussion, we finally decided to try another slope close to first one. After a fist attempt on the main slope, we discover that the wind was too crossed to fly, so we continued to walk to a mini summit facing the north, not ideal at all for F3F, but however fliable.

Under a threatening grey sky, we installed the pylons, and flew a first round (best time 40s). We started the second round but quickly had to stop when the snow decided to fall again. Temperatures were freezing. some drop of water went to ice on the wings, while putting back the plane in the bag. OK, we are crazy, I know !!!!

Now the question was, what to do the next day to ensure we could fly more and validate the contest (4 rounds needed, given  the 14 pilots presents). We decided to move the contest 60km to the south, near Gap, to retrieve the sun and the wind.

On Sunday, we arrived at the parking around 10:30, climbed the slope and installed everything, then resumed the contest with round 2, under a blue sky, but still freezing temperatures, especially becuase of the strong wind (8 to 13 m/s).

We managed 6 new rounds, in superb conditions, with some thermals. Best time is 34s by Alain Galinet with his Alliaj HM. Lot of sub-40 has been flown. The only drawback of the slope was that the landing area was behind the course, so we had to wait the landing of the pilot before to launch the next pilot.

We finished around 3:00 pm with a total 7 rounds in the pocket. We all had a great day on this slope, that we need for sure insert in the calendar of the french league for next year.

Thanks to the organisers for making this contest finally possible !

The White Stork and the Shadow ...

This superb and magic pictures from Olivier Bruni has been taken during a shooting session of his E-shadow from NAN models. According to Olivier, White Storks live in his area (south west of France), and it is not unusual for him to fly with some of them.

You can retrieve the entire photo album HERE, with plenty of stunning pictures. Olivier has also a very interesting blog "Passions Aéro" with nice video, articles, and news.

Olivier told me that he is preparing a video of this E-shadow flying session. As soon as the video is released, I will share it with you.

Thanks Olivier for capturing this moment of grace and beauty, and sharing it with us !

Towing meeting near Montpellier

Another photo album from Pascal Tournache after his participation of the towing meeting of the OMAT club in Montpellier under a blue nd sunny sky, with a friendly atmosphere:

Spring Cup F3F Poland 2013

A nice video from Adam Bury about the F3F Spring cup in Poland that was organised last week-end. You can also find many pictures at the following URL: http://www.f3f-klif.pl/2013/05/puchar-wiosny-f3f-2013-rozegrany/