Constant near death experiences...

Dodging showers near Eisenach EDGE.

Less room between the ground and the cloudbase southeast of Frankfurt. At about that time there was quite a bit of chatter on the radio. To the northwest and to the southeast of my route, the weather was bad and FIS was advising people about others having to turn back.

Crossing the river Rhine, the airfield you can see is Worms EDFV, in the background is Mannheim on the left and, on the right, Ludwigshafen (colloquially known as “Lumpenhafen”, translates into something like “rabble harbour”). A city best viewed from about this distance.

Palatinate forest, the village of Elmstein. I grew up on the edge of that forrest and, as a child, was forced to hike on probably every hill you can find in that picture. Twice.
The road to Elmstein is legendary, as it featured a curve whose radius got progressively smaller, known as the ‘carousel’. Legend had it the helicopter from the trauma centre in Ludwigshafen just waited on a grass patch nearby to pick up the motorbikers every weekend. Last I heard twenty years ago is that the road is now closed to all motorbikes, even the locals.

Pirmasens EDRP. I’m apparently lucky, everyone I meet is friendly and helpful. After refuelling, I chatted with the guy in the tower, he activated my flightplan and off I went into the unknown known as France.

To be continued… (probably tomorrow)

Capitaine wrote:

it is very hilly.

Very much so, unfortunately.

This part is a bit boring, because… well, it was boring. I now understand the term “flyover country”. Surely nice down there, but not where I want to be.

Just after takeoff, I’ve tried to reach the French FIS. I had a cheat sheet for the radio communication, as I intended to ask for passage through these Phalsbourg ZRTs. But as I was too low – obvious in hindsight. I couldn’t reach anyone on the frequency and was getting anxious. Only much later in the next sector I managed to reach someone. Immaculate english, he immediately found my flightplan, but as I was already almost through the corridor below the ZRT, I stayed low.
Bale Information was different, the reception was bad and the english worse. The only thing of note was a burning compost heap in the middle of nowhere and dodging some light rain near Grenoble. Marseille Information reception (probably due to the mountains) was so bad that I simply stayed at squawk 7000. The weather was great for gliding, not so great for flying fast low – it got very bumpy.

I intentionally deceided not to take pictures on this leg beforehand, I was busy enough with everything else, but when I neared the end and got higher, I couldn’t resist. I didn’t need the long route low down, passing over Gap Tallard LFNA as the weather was getting more CAVOK by the second, so I simply climbed above everything.

I prepared a cheat sheet for french (and english) phraseology, but when I tried to call Serres radio, I was greeted in German by a glider pilot on the ground. I did a perfect landing in light Mistral – only afterwards I was told that in strong Mistral you get wind shear of up to 50km/h and that I should have been much faster.

Here is a youtube video of how landing on the rwy 36 feels like:



In strong winds, the proximity to the mountain can wreak havoc to your approach – it’s not easy to land there if there is wind. Unless you’re flying a glider, you need a mountain rating. So it’s now official, glider pilots are the better pilots. Just look at that guys vario…

Unpacking. Most of the luggage was buckled to the passenger seat.

The housing consisted of small chalets (reportedly most of them made from former GDR military surplus) and parking for caravans, but I only had a frugal bed in a room for four in the bigger chalet.

Pretty sunset.

UdoR wrote:

But, ehm, is the total exaggeration in the headline necessary?

While I admit that the title is a bit of clickbait, it’s less far from the truth than I’d like to admit.
The following pictures probably won’t do the experience justice on just how close to the terrain we often were, your senses and attention at a 110% all of the time. Add oncoming traffic, hazardous terrain features and paragliders…. I always considered paragliding to be fun, but now, seriously, it’s more like pedestrians on the highway!
And if it weren’t that, it was sketchy gaggles of easily ten glides, often in a similar altitude band and/or with little room to the peak below. Ridge soaring is rather unsettling, often low, you’re always considering escape routes, a plan B, C and ideally D.
The worst was learning when and how(!) to circle in front of a wall with always just enough reserves to allow an escape. Yes, I know it’s not recommended or rather very much advised against, but this was training with the best and they do stuff like this. Not me, I probably won’t for the next few years.
Then add the hazards of power lines and cable cars (thankfully rare in southern France) or simply corners where you don’t even know if someone will come around at the same altitude. And even if you have the right wing on the wall and thus the right of way, nobody really wants that as an epitaph.

It took me this entire week to get comfortable doing all these things, mountain glider pilots are built different. According to Klaus, the difference between alpine soaring and flatland soaring is bigger than the difference between flatland soaring and being a pedestrian. Harsh and probably not entirely true, but I can see why he thinks that. Just compare this thread when finished to the other alpine flying threads here in this forum.

So, disclaimer, the following photos are from one of the most extreme experiences I ever had and what I did there is most likely not for everyone. I apologize for the tardiness, but since my iCloud was full, I needed to find a creative solution to access the photos. In the end, it consisted of airdropping the images to the ipad, from there to a micro SD card and then using a free HEIC to JPG converter.

So, day 1.
10:00 local is the usual weather briefing with the legend himself. I believe he took pity in me as he agreed to fly with me for the day. Oh boy, what a ride:

There was a bit of Mistral. First we did some dynamic soaring on the east west oriented ridges south of Serres, up to the Montagne de Lure where we found a thermal up to the clouds. No photos as I was flying myself – all photos were taken when someone else was flying, I certainly did not have any capacity.

Then in the general direction of Fayence.

Gorges du Verdon

The cloud base in Italy is usually lower, I’ve learned.

Along the border to the north

The convergence where the air masses meet. You can find lift on the left of the cloud.

“please stay in front of the cloud”

The different cloud heights never cease to amaze me. To the right is Italy.

The Ecrins in the distance to the west

A wingspan away from the ridge near the Colle del Sommeiller.