Every Easter for the last 5 or more years several UK slope
pilots have travelled to the famous La Muela hill near Madrid on the pretext of their
annual F3F (slope racing) event.
This year the F3F itself was to be held in Bilbao on the north
coast of Spain but it would take more than such an insignificant technicality to thwart
the Brits pilgrimage to La Muela.
Early in 2003 a plan started to emerge. Take one 15 seater
mini-bus, insert 7 pilots and 39 models, drive to La Madeleine (southern France), fly
there for a few days, hop across to Bilbao for the F3F and then nip down to La Muela to
check that heaven on earth is still letting in the unworthy.
In the blink of an eye it was Easter and myself, John McCurdy,
Mike Shellim, Andy Ellison, Pete Rundle and Ian Mason were milling around Vic Eldridge's
front lawn looking for some grease and a mini-bus sized shoehorn.
A few modifications later and everything, including the
barbeque, was squeezed in and it was only a matter of hours before we were meeting up with
fellow Brits Alex McMeekin, John Phillips, Edwin Jenkins and Ali Oldman in the quaint
Basque village of Barcus, ready to feast before the next day's flying at La Madeleine.
The following morning needed a few gallons of orange juice and
strong coffee to browbeat the hangovers into submission but before long it was off to La
Madeleine, a huge, picturesque slope in the foothills of the Pyrenees, for a little
aviation to justify the visit.
Flying huge, inland slopes like La Madeleine and La Muela is a
different kettle of fish to just about all hills back home in the UK. A fair proportion of
the time is spent with negligible slope lift but prominent thermal activity. The trick is
to play the odds, judge the conditions and learn when and where the thermals are going to
start bubbling up.
Fortunately the advent of foamies means there's no shortage of
carefree lift barometers. Although, cheap and bouncy they may be, for rewarding flying in
these sort of conditions 3 metres of moulded shininess really fits the bill. Should the
unthinkable happen and your plastic perfection starts to sink into the valley its amazing
efficiency and the sheer altitude of the hills mean it is possible to range around for
ages in search for better air and land outs are very, very rare. Even on days without
significant slope lift it is still possible to fly pretty much constantly and, although
different, this style of flying is immensely rewarding.
La Madeleine was proving very entertaining; there was just
enough slope lift to reassure the less confident and plenty of big and small thermals
popping off all around to allow for some serious specking out and subsequent screaming
descents.
Shortly after a splendid picnic lunch some of the French F3F
pilots came to join us for a trimming session before the following day's trip to Bilbao.
The international F3F community is exceptionally friendly and it
was fantastic to see Michel Etchart and Olivier Aubel again.
Before long the slope lift picked up a little allowing some more
traditional slope flying and a bit of Dynamic Soaring, indeed it was enough to persuade
Vic to launch his well-travelled ASW 27. Unfortunately it wasn't quite enough to sustain
Vic's well-travelled ASW 27 but Big Ted at the controls has landed out enough around the
world to know the drill and put her down safely.
After a little more flying, considerably more food, a
respectable quantity of beer and plenty of banter we set off back to Barcus for yet more
food and beer as well as a quick sleep top up before the three and a half hour drive to
Bilbao the following morning.
The next day we made Bilbao just after lunchtime. Arriving at
the slope we were warmly greeted by our Spanish hosts, more French, a Venezuelan and lots
of sun. The only fly in the paella was that the wind was being a little bashful.
The Azkorri slope at Bilbao is rather pleasant; several hundred
feet high, pretty straight, completely sheer and provides a great view of the sea and the
nudist beach below - I kid you not!
The 2-3 metres per second wind was just enough for a few Mirajs
to amble back and forth but even these masters of light air would every so often find
themselves hastily dumped in the welcoming cliff side bushes to avoid an embarrassing walk
to the beach.
Several pleasant hours were spent catching up on gossip,
absorbing the local's most splendid liquid hospitality and generally enjoying ourselves.
The evening was topped off with the most enormous Chinese meal you could imagine and a few
more beers, just to make sure we slept well before the competition of course.
The next day started with registration for the 45 pilots, lots
of sun and no wind. Throughout the day the wind did build and occasionally touched on the
minimum set for the competition of 3 metres per second. Unfortunately it was also a little
off the slope meaning that other than the occasional, and usually brief, unpowered
airborne sorties all that really flew were discus hand launch gliders (DHLGs) and a rather
winsome electric Ellipse 2.
Just as we were preparing to call it a day the organisers
bravely decided to try another slope. After a quick pack of the mini-bus and scooting a
few kilometres up the coast it seemed that the decision had been inspired as we arrived to
the sight of pilots willingly testing the unmistakingly buoyant air.
The site was close to perfect. A steep, grassy sea cliff with an
accessible step to ease any land-out worries, bushes to effect perfect arrester landings
and a view to die for.
Round one was soon underway and was going rather smoothly for a
while, then it was my turn. As if by magic the wind meter ground to a halt and my
launcher, John Philips, and I were left admiring the scenery for a few minutes until the
wind picked up and I was given the nod to launch.
Despite suffering the ill effects of the day's hospitality, I've
flown enough to know cutting would be a disaster in the light air, so I flew a somewhat
conservative course. The conditions certainly suited the Pike Brio prototype that I was
using and the time was fast enough to put me in a good position and annoy the pilots who
flew a better course for worse times. As it turned out they needn't have fretted as the
wind dropped again just before the last few pilots were due to fly and the round had to be
scrubbed.
That evening was the night of the traditional banquet, which, by
a quirky and rather welcome coincidence, happened to take place in our Bilbao hotel. As a
result our evening travel commitments were restricted to an acceptable 50 yards or so and
we were able to make full and copious use of the hotels most excellent beverage dispensing
facilities.
The banquet was typical of Spanish events; great food, good chat
and excellent wine, all topped off with a magnificent raffle where the quality prizes
seemed to reach almost everyone.
The next day dawned far too early but like good Brits we reached
the hill on time, well pretty much anyway. Once again the sun shone, the models were
rigged in eager anticipation but the wind was noticeably absent.
No matter, it freed up our diaries for more banter, more
electrics and some rather smart DHLGs. One such plane in particular caught the eye, it was
the Splo designed by Jose Luis Valverde, Jesus Sayago and Alex Mahillo.
Not only is the Splo pretty, it is also very impressive in the
air. The specs for this nicely moulded, soon to be available DHLG are 1500mm span, around
275g flying weight, HN1079PP section and all for 300 euros.
Much fun was had, stories told, jokes played and laughter lines
ingrained until at around 3 o'clock the Brits could wait no longer before they had to
leave for the next pin in the map, Guadalajara (the town we stay at when visiting La
Muela).
The usual group photos were taken, tears were shed (you'd cry if
you saw some of the photos) and we finally headed off into the sunset.
The four or so hour drive to Guadalajara proved fairly
uneventful (we only lost one of the convoy) allowing us to muster enough strength for a
somewhat prolonged stint in one of the local nightclubs.
Next day we managed to make the 20 minute drive to La Muela and
get the first plane in the air by about 11:00, no mean feat in the circumstances.
The conditions were not classical La Muela, the wind was very
strong but the temperature was a little mild to say the least. Still the flying was great.
The next day saw La Muela produce the conditions that drag us
back year after year. Enough breeze to make the 80 degree temperatures bearable and
wall-to-wall thermal activity.
Combine that with the enormous provisions of food and beverages
purchased that morning, a roaring barbeque, some more Spanish and a Venezuelan pilot
turning up from Bilbao and Mike Shellim volunteering to be the designated driver made it a
day to remember.
Our Venezuelan friend, Carlos Rivero, told us that they managed
to get in three rounds of competition after all the Brits had left Bilbao. We of course
completely ignored him assuming he had cottoned on to the British wind up tradition but he
had the last laugh as sat in my e-mail inbox was a set of bona fide results.
Apparently Alejandro Mahillo was the winner, Pierre Rondel was
second (always the bridesmaid eh Pierre!) and Jesus Sayago was third.
Pierre got the fastest time of the day with 48.26 seconds and,
if I'm not mistaken, he would have won the event if it hadn't been for a penalty in round
1. I guess that blow was softened slightly as the event didn't qualify for the F3F
Eurotour as only 3 rounds were flown.
Anyway, back at the British enclave at La Muela the flying
conditions were now typical of the hill; enough slope lift to just about sustain launch
height and regular thermals and their associated sink.
We kicked off the day with a quick photo shoot of all the models
and pilots around the minibus. Once that was done it seemed like a good idea to take the
same shot from the air. So John McCurdy launched first to thermal spot (there was no slope
lift at all at this point) and I duly followed with my Pike Brio prototype carrying my
Nikon digital camera.
John did a great job and guided me to a bubble of air just about
good enough to haul my plane plus its heavy and draggy passenger to sufficient height to
do a furtive circuit or two of the pits and fire off some shots.
Once that was out of the way everyone took to the air for an
enthralling few hours flying. Each one of us ended up with a personal triumph or two and
there's no doubt that much was learned about reading the air, thermaling, testing model
integrity in huge dives from altitude and, in some cases, picking land-out spots!
The following day was more of the same, until, all too soon, our
fun permits had expired and it was time to head home.
What of the models flown? Well the conditions at Bilbao weren't
such that any reasonable conclusions could be drawn about the models used, in any case
their wasn't really anything new that couldn't be seen at any UK F3F event. However as
QEFI pages have been a little bare of F3F material lately perhaps a quick pointer at some
of the latest F3F hardware is in order.
The Corracho from Vecktor Modelltechnik in Germany (www.vektormodelltechnik.de)
is a top quality, very impressive piece of kit. They don't come cheap but you get a no
compromise model designed and built by competitors for competition and there are few
models that can truly boast that.
Two other such competition bred machines are the Arkanj from
Aeromod in France (www.chez.com/aeromod/)
and the Pike Brio from Samba in the Czech Republic (www.modely.cz/samba/).
The Arkanj is the latest evolution from the same range as the
deservedly popular Miraj. They look promising but only a few have so far been released in
to the wild so flight comparisons have been hard to come by.
Even rarer is the Pike Brio. I used the prototype to win the UK
F3F League by a respectable margin in 2002 and as I type (May) the first production wing
has just been cracked out of the mould. Having played a part in the design and development
of the Brio it would be wrong of me to comment further but fortunately I don't have to as
the plane and its results speak for themselves!
