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Annecy - Jason's 2nd dbag - final day
Annecy 2007 - Mont Blanc - day 7

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Finger Lakes this weekend
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Annecy (the sequel!) - 2005

This was a great trip. I got to fly with my twin brother Jason, parents Janet and Brian, girlfriend Emmalyn and friends Suzanne, Andy and Chris DAYS NUMBERED AS -4,-3 etc WERE BEFORE THE TRIP (this was confusing Jason a little bit)
(Day -4) (Day -3) (Day -2) (Day -1) (Day 1) (Day 2) (Day 3) (Day 4) (Day 5) (Day 6) (Day 7) (Day 8)

Day 3

Thursday 28th July 2005

This was the day both my parents (Janet and Brian), my girlfriend (Emmalyn) and Chris`s girlfriend (Suzanne) all decided they were up for a tandem flight.

Having watched the local tandem pilots previously, it was obvious that the turn around for a flight was very quick. Not needing to gain altitude, tandem pilots fly all day, lobbing off at Col de la Forclaz, completing a few beats of the hill before setting off on the `sled run` to the landing field at Doussard.

Well that seems to be the order of the day for all the flights up to 6pm. The last flights of the day see the tandem pilots heading back for La Tournette and even going across to Les Dentes. If ever you travel to Annecy and have a friend that wants to fly tandem book the 6pm slot.

Anyway we booked up the 6pm slots for mum, dad and Suzanne. Unfortunately there were none left for Emmalyn, so she had to go earlier at 5pm. Chris, Jason and myself were planning to be flying while they all launched and film them from the air. That was the plan anyway.

Since we had some time on our hands Chris and I decided to do some ground handling. After Chris`s poor launch attempts the day before he was keen to get it right this time. Launching without an engine is a very different skill. After about an hour we were getting hot and sweaty so we packed up our gliders and waited for the bus.

Jason Chris and I headed up to the take off mat in the `navette` that leaves regularly from the landing field and after a spot of bother with the rental car mum, dad, Suzanne and Emma followed in the car. They wanted to check out the view from the top before flying. They stopped off for some lunch and finally got to see a view of the lake from the up high.

At take off conditions were disappointing. There was little lift and several pilots played `wind dummy` scraping around in zero lift close to the trees before `bombing out`.

It was picking up as I decided to launch. I got Chris off the mat first. The safety guy was very impressed with his launch and shouted `much better` which really pleased Chris. It was a very nice launch. I followed shortly afterward and we were soon both struggling to maintain our height> Chris was getting a little close to me at times and was causing me to fly out of lift to avoid him, but he was doing very well staying up in marginal lift. At one point Chris hit an unexpected patch of sink. He was already flying pretty close to the trees and suddenly found himself flying between two trees with his canopy feet from each with no escape. I thought he was going to get hooked up on a tree, but he just scraped through. It was very close and Chris wisely decided to push out from the hill more. Not long after this Chris headed off to the landing field as we were gradually losing height. I followed and we landed about 45 mins after take off, having never gained any height.

Jason followed us, he had been more successful and had briefly managed to track a thermal above take off, but conditions were still scratchy and most pilots were just hanging on.

We all landed and packed up. Chris was beaming from ear to ear. He had pulled off a very respectable launch and managed to stay up for 45 mins in very tricky conditions.

It was now late afternoon and the others would soon be doing their tandem flights so Jason and Chris headed off up the mountain (in the car) and I very generously sacrificed the opportunity to fly so that I could greet and film Emmalyn as she completed her tandem flight.

This was a point that was completely wasted on her for reasons I will now explain....

It seems that as they were already near the launch site Suzanne needed to get some extra Euros, so they all drove back down into town and then caught the bus back up. After all the bendy mountain roads Emmalyn was feeling pretty sick. With no time to rest she was straight in the harness and lobbing off the hill. In no time with the bumpy air she was fit to burst but manging to hold it down, Keen to land quickly she asked her tandem pilot, Lauren, to land as soon as possible. He was very understanding and made a straight glide to the landing field. He wasn`t quite quick enough as:-

Emma warned him....`uh oh Lauren, I`m going to be sick!`

`Try to do it on zee right..`

`Bluhhoh`

`Or zee left is ok too`

Just as Emma landed I ran up with the video camera telling her that I got the landing on film (unaware that she had thrown up). She was unimpressed and I wished I`d just gone back up to launch with the others as they had over an hour and a half of beautiful flying in smooth evening air.

Emma washed up in the toilet facilities and we waited for the others (mum, dad and Suzanne) to complete their tandem flights.

They had good luck and each had over an hour in the air with every one of them doing a spiral dive in to land. All were very pleased to have booked the 6pm flights as you get much more for your 80 Euros.

Now all we had to do was wait for Jason and Chris to land, since the other rental car was still at the top of the mountain. Eventually they both landed amongst a gaggle of other pilots and I packed up Jason`s gear while he and dad fetched the other car.

Everyone was happy to have had a flight with possibly the exception of Emmalyn who, atleast, has a funny story to tell.

The content of this site is ï¿½ Mark Andrews 2005-12, mandrews1973@gmail.com