Alicante at night

Tandem flying, always a party. On the foto in the air together with Olga. A blast.
Thanks sending me the fotos Diana and Olga. Hope to see you again.

Competicion near Valencia

Chris Wileman on foto

While most pilots left for Orenga, site near Valencia-Castellon, we had the sky for ourselves in Palomaret.

Winds were off to the east, and with a not so high cloudbase it was not the perfect day. But still managing toplandings etc... always a value in your flight. During our flying we had radio contact with our friends who were flying at Cabo de Santa Pola.

When eastern winds come in, some rotor is expected from Ventos - Maigmo. Also big landing field I try to avoid, I prefer the little one which is less rotory.

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CPR, in english, couldn't find it subtitled

Sorry for the french, it is in english.

Reconco Onil, where playmobil originated from

For local pilots, just some info. Above you can see that my 'guiris', sometimes described as low airtimers, greens, punters, on local forums, have done pretty well no ?
1900 m ASL at Reconco, 3 hours of flying, yes today as you can read as well 4th of june 2010.

Not one local pilot was present, not one local pilot knew where the best flying was today. Not one read the charts.
I have to defend my guests. Lately, there was asked not to come down with my guests, as take off was a bit daunting. Another message saying no worries your clients don't get above take off any way, hahaha.
Well proves wrong. Yesterday at the take off of Fortuna, I haven't seen better take offs in ages. I know lots of locals wouldn't even think going up there, because their skills lack.
Today my pilots' flying was awesome. They flew in strong thermals, had to deal with suspicious cloud formations, later keeping cool in the turbulent air of "breeze meets meteo", ending the day with easing it off soaring for another half hour before a well deserved 'beer o'clock'.

You want me to give you a hand ? Look at the foto below. You can clearly see the convergence line. The southeastern winds blocking the meteo coming from west. XC along the ridges, or triangle flight like our german pilot with DHV1 wing achieved.
Don't know what is happening lately, but foreign pilots rule the sky. It is them that fly different sites, it is them that have personal bests.
Today I just had to defend you guys. Lets keep on going, lets keep on flying different sites, lets keep on exploring the sky. That's why I am here. I could be lazy and take you to Palomaret and Cabo every day - every day, but Alicante offers sooooo much more. Proven, again.

Iceland

This is sent in by my Iceland friend Einar, best pub ever for Iceland. Lovely. And believe it or not, there ARE paragliding pilots in Iceland. I know 'cause I've met several, great stuff.

Inspired by Iceland Video from Inspired By Iceland on Vimeo.

10 minutes for my blog

Fredrik, Alf, Marcus, me , Max, Ian and Alf.

Pilots ask me how much time I spend on my blog. Average 10 minutes I guess. I get home after flying, plug camera in, automatically foto's are uploaded on my pc. I click on 5 or so foto's to upload on my blog.

After shower or snack, I type in some words, reflecting the day. 10 minutes, which give me time to let you know how we did today, and giving me time to end the day paragliding and chill, play with Paco, have my evening.

Morning flying at Fortuna. Superb flying till 3 pm. Take off was not that wild, so all in the air, enjoying the june thermals. At 3 pm all went down, for our lunch at Jesus' place near Sierra de Pila. Most recommended.

Fortuna is a superb place where nobody goes out flying. It has two take offs, upper and lower. The flying is done in a huge bowl. The least of wind triggers of the hot valley air, and let you raise over the ridges overlooking the Sierras de Carche and Pila. A 4x4 is needed to get to the take off, and a 10 minute walk cleans out the cobwebs in your head to get you all boosted up to fly in this magnificient scenery.

After our lunch, the clouds were looking too suspicious and were crawling nearer and nearer. Headed back home with a truckload of happy pilots. It took me 11 minutes this time.

Happiee !!!

Relaxing

Indeed it was Cabo today. Relaxing after the thermalling days we had before. We all enjoyed it, knowing tomorrow it is gonna be a bit more sportive inland again.
It is a non stop flying month, and should last till september, october, november, ... .

The 'after-fly' with Max, Tal and Alf. Marcus and Fredrik not on the picture.

pim pam poem

It was a bit pim-pam-poem said Kike this afternoon. Kike is a Sigma7 pilot and flies almost daily at our sites.

Same was said after the flying by Fredrik, Alf, Tal and Stevie. Most of them flew at their limits, but pushed themselves to stay in the air. I knew it was gonna die off, it was not gonna get any stronger. So it was well achieved, a two hour flight in sporty conditions.

Later off course it was all boaty and smooth, nice to finish of the day. A hot day, a 30 degree day. I wouldn't know what to do without a swimming pool.
From now till september you have to have access to a swimming pool, it is so refreshing when you're back from flying or having your breakfast swim. Almost a must.

All who comes down to join the flying i nAlicane will have a swimming pool included.

You have to enjoy the flying down here at the most. Including chill, ice cold drinks, beach and swim, you bet.

flying creatures

Ozone BUZZ3

Yups, that's the one. The one lots of pilots should consider buying. Safe flying, very good performance and the looks ... well see for yourselves.

I've tried lots of gliders, seen lots of gliders, sold lots of gliders. And every now and then I feel there is a winner. Well looking for a DHV1/2, get the Ozone Buzz3. You won't regret it.

As you can see it was another bloody good day inland. XC hounds Pepe, Ismael and Rafa, flew during central hours and made it up to 1400 m above take off, meaning 2200 above sea level. We have to take their word for it, as we arrived for later flying, when strong hammery spring thermals were gone.

Still fantastic to see Tal, John, good old Alf, and very good old Stevie in the air.

Tandem flying

At 11.30 thermals were already present. Bruno had his quick flight before heading back to Paris with Remi and Hervé. Bruno made a quick out and return of 15 k. Remi and Hervé stayed local to make sure retrieval of the car was secured.

During all that Toon and new guest Tal enjoyed the morning pitchy thermals as well. Just before having a chill and having a later smoother breeze flight at 5 pm.

I was working hard, and doing tandems.

home soon baby ...

From 11.30 wings out and last one to land at 7.30.

At 11.30 am, we were flying in the lee. Clouds were coming from over the back, we were flying pitchy lee thermals, but safe.

Huge clouds were forming and that was probably the reason why no local pilot showed up. No worries we had the whole air for ourselves.

Locals arrived at 5 pm, breeze had kicked in and all got very smooth.

We had three cycles at Palomaret today, thermals, collision with the breeze, and some breeze flying. All good was

No, not us but our Danish friends

Our Danish friends soaring their coastline. We couldn't play today. From early morning it looked too nasty, with rain this evening. A day off, I think after a good week of flying daily, that it didn't matter to chill, drink and eat for a bit. Tomorrow we are off again. All re-charged.

Down, more for the Danish. An article in danish about flying in Alicante, published in the past

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No,

Mammatus clouds over take off

Cliffs of Santa Pola. Tricky in the morning as lee thermals from the 'barranco' were shooting off when toplanding. It turned too much to the south, so we had to take it relaxed this afternoon, to get our wings out again later in the afternoon.

Inland bad weather, mammatus clouds over the take off, as you can see. These subtropical clouds don't mean good weather. All pregnant water bags over your head, usually in the tail of the cunimb, which was luckily miles away inland.

Calpe, Peñon d'Ifach

Last view before heading home. Orographic loud over Peñon d'Ifach. The rock sticking out near Calpe beach, for me to categorize as top 10 beauty places of the world. Click on it and see it large.

Bandera España - Spanish Flag

Bandera Española the flowers are called, now blooming everywhere.

We flew earlier at La Cortina, later flying Toix near Calpe.
An amazing site, right over the Med, needing southwest. It was only till late that conditions were good, before we had to sit it out. It was hot today, probably 30 degrees and loving it.

Stevie with Kath's HOOK touching cloudbase near the top.

Everybody was taking his clothes off today. Don't know why. Ok, it was scorching hot, but not very common that all the boys wanted to be photographed. Anyway here is the result so.

Down below the same group of french, 8 years ago, with clothes on .... .

Cabo flying and later Carrasqueta on my birthday, cheers you all !

A busy day on my birthday. Soaring with the lads till noon and then quick powernap for half hour and off to Carrasqueta. Nippy thermals at Cabo, who made most of the group landing near the chapel near the beach. Winds were a bit off, mid spring, so that's what happens at our take off.

I flew the NOVA Triton 20, up to max 105 kg, with my speedy weight of 95, it was fast. But not getting less height, no this beast climbs like no other glider. And this demo for sale still at 1800 euros. Mainly aimed for current pilots I would say.

Our apres-vol we had at Venta Teresa again. There I was happily treated by the owner by a quickly selfmade birhtday cake. How little things can warm your heart. Foto on top of the French Flying Chickens and my 'vlaamse moat' Toon.