No flying today, winds too strong.

As forecasted, the front burning off today. We saw it coming in from the back yesterday over the ridges. It was gonna be a non flying day today.

Thanks for the picture Benedict. And say hello to Pierre and Jacques.

Nice foto of the launch with Anna, assisted by Pepe, upcoming comp pilot after years of acro flying ? Lets hope, he's doing well lately.

Morning tandems with Nicoletta Italia.
Winnie from Denmark soaring with her independence.

Sexy dressed Anna from Britain ready to fly tandem. Matching socks.
My Niviuk TAKOO, never let me down yet. Flew it in all conditions and feels very trustworthy.

Full day of paragliding. Morning soaring at the coast, with the odd punchy thermals at the cliffs. Tandem flights with Nicoletta from Italia. She loves it, as she loves sky-diving as well

Later in the day more of all that, at Palomaret. Where Guy and Allan enjoyed the stronger thermals. Earlier in the day there were 7 m/s thermals and cloudbase 1000 m above take off at 1850 meter.
I registered on the tandem flight still 5 m/s and it was 6.30 pm already. Absolutely april.

Flew with Anna, Guys' girlfriend and she loved it.

In the air thermals were still strong, and the air was cold. The front bothering the northtern part of Spain is approaching, that was clear looking over the back seeing the cloudformations.

erin

Joachim German pilot : "For once I have it right now, nobody is watching."

See you again Joe, keep on doing hours of groundhandling like you are used to. Say hi to the goodies in Deutschland.

Flying tandem with famous belgian comedian Wim Helsen.

Take off with a little help from my friends, Toni gracias !
Lots of tandems today, Alejandra from Bulgaria and lots of others from Erasmus in Alicante

It was a good old sunday afternoon, all in a jolly good mood, nice and summery, hours of flying, toplanding, playing, chatting, taking off again, and ICE CREAM !!!

Some foto's my 9 year old Paco took. He's got an eye for pub no ?

And look at the happy faces, I think they had a good week.... well we did.

Competition day today at Reconco Onil. Task was set Onil - Almansa, which is a 50 km flight. Most of us in the air before the comp started. Nice.

Then lots of pilots ready as you can see on the foto, to get the cup !

Who won ? Good old Dudo, who flies with us daily. He is a very good pilot under a safe DHV2 glider. Maybe missing other comps because of his glider speed, but strategically on of our better pilots, nothing opportunistic about him. Rafa our other dude, got all his gear stolen, yes his brandnew Niviuk Icepeak XP got stolen yesterday with all the rest of his gear like harnass, XC traineretc... , so had to compete with some lousy MacMagnus glider or something. Of course his spirits were low, and preferred to keep the honour to himself and abandon the race toplanding and leave the results to others.

Anyway, not of too much importance for us. We had a great day, at Onil and then later on at Palomaret, where everybody had his last flight before heading back home to England.

Guys it was a pleasure to have had you around, I honestly hope all was fine, and truly hope to see you all back again later. Take care.

Pierre and Jacques and Benedicte, keep in touch, get ready to fly big time down in Alicante next time. Let us have your foto's !

Everybody happy I guess.
Those who didn't fly yesterday, had soaring in this morning for a couple of hours. Those who had their personal best achieved yesterday, were happy to relax in laminar conditions at the cliffs.

Later in the day, still time to fly the thermals.

No trees, no damage. Fine, but take offs could have been lots lots better.
I know I repeat myself but again and again I see pilots taking off too opportunistic. Just like throwing their 'kite' above them and see what happens. Club pilots .... yes .....
Anyway, groundhandling is the secret of becoming good.

Lately I had some inquiries from (british, french) schools to come down and fly. No, don't do it. This region is not good to teach students. Terrain is rough and conditions are not suitable. To fly in our region you need to have a perfect take off technique, be good at active flying if you want to enjoy your trip. So sorry for the schools, maybe they found it weird that I do not want the bussiness, but I speak in terms of safety. This region should be visited by club pilots, 30 hours and not by students. Spread the word ! And I hope we'll see you all though one day.

Monte Cabrer, one of our highest mountains. Soon be blocked with a chain. Protecting the natural reserve for different reasons.

Today we could still drive up to take off, soon we will have a 45 minute walk. No problem, it is a great and lovely and high site.

And for the flying, well today Dudo got 2300 meter above sea level, that's a 1200 meter climb above take off. He landed near Jijona with his Advance Sigma6. Rafa, didn't make it that far. He outclimbed all of us, but had a huge collapse at 2000 meter later. Came down on half a wing, trying to keep it flying straight, eyes on his reserve handle just in case. He landed near Alcoy, no harm.

Lots of Brits got close to 2000 meter as well. Super thursday today at Monte Cabrer.

Shit happens.
-----------------------------


Still euforic about the saving of Santa Pola. Today at the take off it was all high five with the locals. Great.
We had a fantastic day today. Took off at noon, and had thermals in already, untill we decided to have a break. (Joachim 2 hours...6 m second thermals ..)
Then we had to wait during central hours for things to calm down. Local pilot Toni and Eduardo even landed in the valley because it was too rough. It is something I would do, not them !
Anyway, at 5 it was excellent. Cloudbase was actually higher than when it was rough. Most of my guests, even the one with the black shirt and the belly (forgot his name,,,) got 500 meters above take off. Super.
A good day at the office.

You did it ! We did it ! Santa Pola, most famous soaring site of Spain, is saved. At last ! After years of judicial fighting with the local government, with the neighbouring urbanisation of the site. At last, we have the result. And the result is 100 % in our favour.

In two months they have to destroy the fences, the wall that obstructed the access to our famous flying site. Yes, this is true. Not a brick can they leave that would witness the illegal closing down of the public road, giving us access to the site. The whole thing will have consequences for the corrupt politicians who were in power at the time the illegal decision was made, that endangered our flying site.

Hereby I will thank you all pilots local and foreign pilots, friends from abroad through this blog for flying with us, DOYOUWANNA. Each one of you have supported the case against the local politicians to save the site by contributing financially to the huge cost of all this. And it was all worth it. Thanks, thanks, thanks. It took some time, some years, but we won and how !

I thank you for the support through the years and trusting us your money to be used for saving our, no no YOUR site Cabo de Santa Pola.

A special thanks again, to our lawyer Rafa, who did his upperbest to get this result. Hoorah !

Some local pilots, and even a foreign school who claims this site is their 'garden site', who didn't spent a penny helping us out, should look in the mirror and be ashamed. But there will be more projects, and this time I hope all will help out, to get the flying better organised in our region.

We went on a roadtrip today. Off to Benidorm, then Guadalest.

And if you read my website, you know for the price of 350 euros a week, you fly in Alicante with the best fly-guide all over, you get shared accommodation and SHARED vehicle ! Let there not be any doubt. Love you all.

Strong westernwinds. No flying. Angry sky, dry though. And warm as long as you were sheltered from the wind. Naarrrrggghhhh.

No flying so we did other things. Visited some sites, like the one on the top foto, the southern cliffs of Campello.
Then we went scorpion hunting at Carrasqueta.
Then in the afternoon my sister went kite-surfing on the beach of Playa Lisa, Santa Pola.
Still westerly winds, too strong.

A couple of days lots of wind. Look at the chart, a high above Iceland and a low above the azores. The world upside down.
Still 20 degrees celsius and more, swimming pools being painted, beaches cleaned up, terraces full. But that's not good enough.

Strong winds. Michael swiss pilot, friend of Amin, Elisabeth, pilots club Blackbirds.

Lenticulares, strong winds from the west. No flying today.

Interesting ? Yeah I thought so, but maybe I am obsessed with flying. I don't know.
I thought it was a really good day. Not strong, no not that, but for me that's not the measure for being good. It was good, as you had to work the thermals. You had to find them and turn smoooooothly.
You could tell who had the habit of flying flatlands. You could tell who had the skills. The french ! They were masters, especially Robert with his UP Trango, pilots from Paris, yes.
It is important to fly these light thermals and do well.

Ready for some more flying, untill John (Cornwall England) let us know the winds were all of a sudden from the back and not weak at take off.
Strange.
Dave (Cornwall England) was probably closest with his explanation. More lift in the valley, cloudsuck, sucking air from the hill, as if it all got catabatic strongly.

Danish pilots, Sohren and friends say hello ! Finish doing well, don't ask me to spell their names .... .

Take care Stijn, Trui, we all hope to see you again. Un saludo.

I am glad I am not the only one who enjoyed the bright colours in the Alicante sun today. Thanks Chris for letting me use your foto's.

Flying on the cliffs. All day long. Relaxed, lots of colours, sunshine, blue mediterranean below your feet.

Happy people.

Ides of March. All pilots except two flew their tits off today. 3 to 4 hours flying in strong punchy thermals at times.
French and english, belgians and norwegians, and pilots from Finland, all in the air, most of them later in the afternoon because tricky air at landing.
Actually it was easier and better and safer so to topland. Strange eh ? No, not if you knew the breeze was kicking in very strong, and the prevailing winds were southwest. So once low, you had to struggle to get to the rotor area to land safe, at times rocking on the lee thermals kicking off.
Anyway not a day for lowairtimers. A day for pilots who had to fly active all the time. Tiring .... .

Then Trui, belgian girl who prefers to piss in the street, than holding it up till she's home, slopelanded unintentionally. Luckily no scratch, no hansaplast needed. Just a huge walk with a 20 kg rucksack on her back, reaching the proper landing field in the dark. Olé !

Above foto's of one of the better take offs today, I saw about 50 take offs today, so having a wine, do you mind ? Love you all.

Just like in Peyton Place, Dallas, or any other soap serie. Same protagonists again and again, once in a while a new kid on the scene.
Rafa, Niviuk Icepeak XP, flew from Jumilla to Calpe beach, 120 km.
Dudo, Advance Sigma6, flew to Tibi, Pepe Niviuk Icepeak flew to Torremanzanas.
All three fantastic results in the competition which was held in Jumilla, province of Murcia.
All three overflew the task by kilometers. Congratulations, again so.
Also congratulations for the very well chosen task this weekend by Jose Luis Segorb.
And who was the new kid on the scene, well it is Kike from Alicante under his ProDesign, he flew the task Jumilla to Sax, and I think he is still dancing the pogo. Congratulations as well Kike.

In Alicante itself it was not flyable. We waited for a window, waited for the breeze to kick in. And it didn't kick in sufficiently to fly safe inland. Just not enough. But we kinda knew this was gonna be the case today anyway.

Day with lots of achievements.

Stevie got 7 m/s thermals and got 3200 feet above take off. I think a shoe is about the size of a feet no ? So if I put three shoes in line, I measure about a meter. So for us Europeans, that means he got 1075 meter above take off, would be 2150 meter above sea level. Not enough shoes to convert that one.

Pani flew 60 km with a cloudbase at 3200 meter from a hill near Lorca, south of Murcia.

Rafa flew the comp task from Jumilla to Alcantarilla and then for leisure flew above my house in El Altet calling me on his phone. Eventually landed on the beach in Arenales del Sol.

Good day ? Bad day ? A very good day I would say.

Foto's above are not from today but give you an idea of what we did today. Top foto is a shot from landing area at Alhama de Murcia where evening flying was done.

Top foto is one of Max (dutch pilot), he sent flying with us a month ago at Carrascoy today's hill.

Ok, this is for the pilots who are arriving tomorrow. Check this windchart. Starting today ending tuesday.

Tomorrow early day flying, sunday .... lets have a beer saturday night ..... , monday soaring or inland, .... .

The only comfort we had today was the temperature. Again the highest in Spain. But windwise very discomfort, way too strong. Not even possible to groundhandle.

I know this sky, it is typical for april. And if you are here just that week, it is not that nice. It is tilting point between winter and summer. Temperatures are high, but winds as well. From tomorrow onwards we should get a higher pressure, but with the prevailing western winds, the thermals could easily generate these winds. Let see.

Above foto's from Andrew, and Bill flying theri brandnew Nova Mentors. But not from today.

Winds too strong, howling as a matter of fact. Low pressure, fronts from Poland to the Mediterranean again. But HOT today, and that was nice. Blue sky, sunny, just feet up and relax. Waiting for the winds to die off, and that'll be from saturday onwards.

Stevie, Mike, Warren, Carl, Mark, Scotty, Rob on the ferry to the island. Pitoresque no ? Time stood still here.

View of the other half of the island, natural reserve. Surrounded by cristal clear water, excellent for diving, snorkeling.


Food attacking Mike. Paella mixta above. On the bottom, black rice, rice coloured by the ink of the octopus. Has te be eaten with ali-oli (garlick mayonaisse)

So today was a culinair trip to the Island of Tabarca. No flying but still sunny in good old Alicante.