4 British and 4 Polish pilots make up this weeks group. Unfortunately we do not have a particularly good forecast for the first part of the week. Saying that, Saturday we had some flying at Chia, and yesterday (Sunday) two flights from Peña Negra, though the mid afternoon flight cancelled due to Cbs and rain. Todays starts bright and sunny….though unlikely to last. At least snow and rain forecast to be worse in the UK and Poland. Some images from yesterdays take offs below.

I have had 2 flights on my new superlight (around 2.5kg) pod harness. It is a hammock style harness, similar I imagine to the Advace Lightness, though with an air bag and a mouse bag. I also have a light reserve, so now I am down from a previous 97kg all up to around 87-88kgs. So nice to be able to throw th kit on my shoulders so easily which was a concern with my dogy shoulder and arm. It is called a Zippy and comes from Ukrania //nearbirds.com/publ/5?en

After a lot of adjusting I found on the first flight that it is very difficult to get it the pod footplate, which leaves you hanging from the legloops and feeling wobbly and uncomfortable. Once in though all is fine with slightly bettter weight shift than my Kortel Kannibal. Often when it gets rought I would drop my legs on the Kortel; this seems a bad option with this harness as without pressure on the footplate there is very little control of the chest strap movement. This first flight a nice thermic O&R to the Corrals.

Saturday I had another go after further adjustments, and it was better, but I got a boot hook sagged in one of the lines supporting the pod which untill I freed it made for a very wobbly time as I could not pressure the footplate. Excelent conditions and we headed of to Barco in a group – with our local pilots, who are al relatively low airtime, so the arrival at Barco was a nice flight and a first or some.

Once again an afternoon trip up the hill with the locals: Eduardo the Vet, Pepe Luis the Bull fighter from Salamanca and Juan Antonio, Chef and owner of the Cayetana hotel and the Café Commercial in the square. Pedro, who is recovering from a broken tibia has been doing the driving with Curro his dog.

Almost zero wind at launch as the Cu clouds were casting shadow on the hill dropping the anabatic wind (forecast light SE). First climb off launch to 4100m with another few meters to go to base. A Glide to near the pass, then back along the north side of the Valley to the Salamanca road and the home. The other chaps made successfully for Barco. A line o Cu on the other side of the pass marked the convergence with E on the other side…so the trip over the pass will have to wait.

The photo on the right is the view over the pass and on the left before turning on the leg back home with Piedrahita and the Gredos behind.

Two excellent days so far this weeks with strong climbs and today with convergence Cu forming over the big moutains way higher than the 2700m achieved in the Piedrahita valley. 24ºC on the ground.

Finally a bit of rain at the end of last week, good for the fields and fire risk problems, but which also washed away the snow at launch revealing evidence of an attempt to steal a section of the Astro turf. This is maddening. The turf has been professionally laid and glued to the concrete drainage channels and each piece (4m wide) joined by a special adhesive to its neighbour. For me that 3000m2 of turf is the culmination of 20 years of efforts to get a decent, clean and safe launch which we hoped would have a lifespan of decades. The financial cost has been considerable with around 30.000€ spent on moving earth to improve the gradient, plus the aquisistion of the turf (normally 20€ m2 but at a special price of 1€/m2, plus around 3000 € on transport and fixing adhesive.
The last step was to ballast the turf with sand (around 5kg /m2). This was not done last year as the comps arrived, then the town hall sort of got distracted. The sand is essential for good ball bounce, and more importantly for us to keep it down and make it more tricky for robbers to haul it away. The turf is actually very heavy even without the ballast and is not the sort of light green cloth with plastic grass you buy at hardware stores for your patio. The robbers used a knife to cut a section of about 10 X4 m which they tried to haul down the slope. Luckily it was too heavy for them, so it was abandoned half way down the slope. The repair wil be about 70€ (the cost of adhesive and joining tape). We also need to get 3 tons of sand up there as soon as possible. A thoughless action by somebody with a stanley knife wanting to save a few bob to carpet their barbeque area! Grrrrrrrr.

Nice flying weather this week so I have been getting up and doing plenty of flying (mainly corrals and back) and getting used to the rather alien limb hanging off my right shoulder. I have no forearm rotation and restricted elbow extenstion but that does not seem to make much difference for flying as my hand, at least, is facing the right way (OK for hand-shakes and paragliding, not good for typing, kayaking, piano playing etc). After the flying season I am booked into a hostpital in Barcelona so a hand and arm surgeon can reassemble my arm in a more correct manner.

The picture below show the take off having dragged the piece back into position. The cut piece is half the 2nd panel from the right. A little grey earth can be seen where it was cut.

As Puri had to go there with Oliver I had ago at reaching Barco against the light NW. Weak themals and climbs to 2200m for me in the valley, but unobtainable convergence and Cu around 2800m over Gredos. I landed short at los Cuartos. 3 forest fires burning the other side of Barco attended by planes and helicopters.

Super conditions on Saturday with peaks of over 4m/s to Cu at 2600m. I was tempted to go over the pass but my hands could not stand the cold up high. Sunday more mellow, though pleaseant enough. Puri had her first flight on the Mentor on Saturday evening.

After soundly thrashing Sophie (aged 5) at snakes and ladders this morning it made me reflect that paragliding XC is much more like that game than the so often quoted ¨Game of Chess¨, a game which I personally have always been completely rubbish at and whose board and pieces seem to have little in common with paragliding. I must have read or heard the chess analogy 100s of times over the years, and have dragged out the old metaphor myself when trying to explain XC flying to non fliers. I wonder what the recipient to these lines actually thought….so, er, the castle is a paraglider yea, or is it the bishop? and the pawns, what are they? Ladders=thermals, snakes=sink, The counter=glider, nº1=take off ,nº100=Goal. Easy. Monopoly, now there´s a game……..

Yet another sunny day. If fact, the countryside looks as it does in summer, very yellow and parched. Normally this time of the year it is lush and green. Apparently it is the driest since the 1940s and fire bans are now active.
So it is CEN -B for me for a while with my new bright green Mentor 2 S. A nice time had this afternoon with a super climb with a bunch of storks; unsual to share themals with them at this time of year.

I have booked my flying holidays for the 1-10 May to the UK – my favorite flying destination in the world. My first flying trip outside Spain since the Pre-Worlds in Mexico in 2009. Can´t wait.

During the FAI World Championships last year we used the live tracking system also used in the PWC and in more and more competition events throughout the world. This is a very usefull system which we have decided we should also use for our guiding service. Each of our pilots would fly with an individual tracker which we will provide, enabling us to keep a close eye on their position throughout their flight.

This has many benefits:
Our retireve driver can more easily follow the progress of our pilots as the flight progresses. Allowing a more effective retrieve, and allowing us to still safely track pilots who we have lost sight of and who have radio faliure.
There will be less need for radio chatter between ourselves and retrieve driver, allowing radio use to be more focused the flying strategy rather than retrieve problems which is often distracting for those still flying.
Faster location in case of accidents or landings in remote areas away from roads or easy landmarks.
Fun for friends/family back home who can see your progress.

We will use the system developed by Manolis Andreadakis and his server on Leonardo Live (Livetrack24.com) There will be embedded pages on our homepage where you will be able to watch the daily progress of the flights in 3D of our XC groups from home. Jorge our retrieve driver will of course have access from the retrieve bus via a smart phone.

Paul Russell as always will be doing all the technical work as far as setting things up on the webite. Within a week or so Manolis will be sending the first units to me in Spain and to Paul in the UK for testing. We hope to have the system up and running for Easter.

These tracking devices devices are small GPS units which carry a SIM card and regularly send position information via the mobile phone network. Our experience in the FAI World Chapionships last year seem to indicate that the coverage is very good in our flying area and it is an excellent alterntive to other satellite style tracking devices such as SPOT.

There will be no rental charge for the device and the Leonardo Live Track service to our clinets. There are various options for the SIM cards. We are restricted to the provider Movistar to ensure the best coverage. Probably for 2012 we will use prepaid SIM cards, though we still need to do some further research in this area.
For the moment the maximum cost per day would be 1.9€/day. This may be less depending upon the hours spent by he pilot flying each day. Probably a 9€ SIM card (which come with an extra 6 free Euros of calls) would be sufficient fo each client for the weeks stay.

We would be be interested in your feed back on this in the comments below. Would you be prepared to pay the extra 9€ for the benefits of using the tracking service?

Well, it has been the longest lay-off I have had from flying since 1986. Five whole months. Perfect winter conditons at Peña Negra today with around 20km/hr at launch, light in the valley and a few weak thermals.