If you don't know the La Muela history by
now you jolly well should. Read back through old News items at Easter each year and you'll
get the picture.
This year was to be slightly different with
a stop off at the La Madeleine (Southern France) Eurotour F3F event on the way to the La
Muela Eurotour F3F. It's a great idea to have a couple of events back to back like this -
long may it continue.
Unfortunately, despite the best laid plans,
my much loved father in-law passed away a couple of days before I was due to get the
ferry. Alternative arrangement were made and I packed my kit into a chum's car and booked
to fly out to Pau and meet them there still in time to sneak in the La Madeleine comp. I
even treated ye old Ginger Trout to a flight to Madrid to hook up with us for a few days
later on.
Then, as it tends to do, shit happened again
and the trip to Pau was off. No matter - although don't bother to insure Ryan Air flights
as it means diddly squat if you actually want to claim; morons. Anyhoo, a quick change of
plan saw me on a flight to Madrid destined for a much needed two weeks at La Muela. Shame
about missing La Madeleine but there's always next year.
The price of not using the ferry to Bilbao
450 Euros. The cost of not using the flight to Pau 300 Euros, the cost of airfare to
Madrid and car hire 800 Euros. Two weeks at La Muela with flying, friends and beer -
priceless ;-)
I managed to squeeze the Skorpion, Short
Viking and Electric Wizard into a flight case. All was going marvellously for nearly 10
minutes until my diligently hand carried Viking V tail got wedged in the X ray machine and
the nice man helped dislodge it with a large stick! Pass the cyano...
Anyhoo, all's well that starts badly and
within a few hours I was back in the Hotel Infante in my adopted home town of Guadalajara,
just NE of Madrid. I had the pleasure of La Muela pretty much to myself for the next few
days. Winds were good and temperatures were mid twenties, perfect for test flying the
Skorpion.
The Skorpion deserves a mention all of its
own, hence this.
The abridged version is that it has been a well kept secret but it's unlikely to stay that
way, so if you're interested book now whilst the waiting list is only two months.
Late on the Tuesday the winds started to
drop. No matter, out with the electric Wizard. What a revelation, this was just what I'd wanted after years
of love/hate relationships with electrics. The geared Hacker B50 dragged it up at an
obscene angle and the gliding and handling were unaffected. After a good few climbs and
very entertaining descents I decided it was time to land and see how much of the 2300mah
flight pack was left.
Nice approach, nice brakes, nice walking
pace descent, soon became not so nice radio problem, not so pleasant peel off to the right
and a really rather unfriendly cartwheel from 20 feet. On the plus side, and much to
Milan's credit, the wings and fin survived pretty much unscathed. The fuselage and
tailplane now rest peacefully in the big bin outside the paraglider's pub at the bottom of
La Muela. Radio worked fine afterwards and RX pack was tip top. Best guess is that it was
my own fault for only leaving 4 or 5 inches of aerial dangling. As it got totally face on,
with my TX aerial largely pointing towards it, the IPD locked up and I had no control. If
it did start listening again I was downwind at zero airspeed and the outcome was
inevitable. Next time it'll be Schulze with enough dangling aerial to fly control line!
Soon the rest of the Brits, French, Spanish,
Portuguese, Germans etc. arrived and, if you listened carefully, you could hear the
Americans crossing the border from France, late as usual.
The competition filled the Friday and
Saturday. As usual there was considerable thermic influence but this time a few
organisational hiccups contributed to the frustrations. Bob Bingham described it well, the
organisers had tried to re-invent the wheel. The theory was fantastic, a laptop based
system that not only ran the course but also did the counting in the appropriate language.
In the real world there were bugs that
needed ironing out. The most common one being Base A getting a bit jittery and the system
recording the offcourse button twice and thus starting the clock as though the pilot had
entered the course. This lead to dozens of reflights, most of which were crow throughs. My
own personal opinion is that where you have such an easy landing area and a bunch of
helpers it is actually quicker, safer and fairer to bail out and refly as soon as possible
rather than crow though at varying speeds and altitude.
To add a little spice, no times or penalties
were announced so some didn't even know they had to protest. Obvious by its absence was
the lack of an international jury. Having organised similar events the best thing you can
have is a group of people to help make crucial decisions (and share the blame!), Having a
jury has a bunch of positives and no drawbacks, hence it was a strange omission.
All in all, had everything gone to plan, we
could probably have flown a full 10 rounds rather than the 6 we managed. Given the thermic
conditions this is particularly disappointing as it would have helped flatten the results
a lot.
Anyway, the important thing is that the
lessons are learnt for next time and for sure I'll be back to check.
In the end American Tim Cone (Aris)
triumphed with Germany's Franz Demler (Freestyler) in second and Olivier Aubel in third.
I chose to fly the Skorpion and getting
sixth without hooking any of the thermals endorses that decision. You can see more about
the Skorpion here.
The next week or so was spent sport flying
in absolutely fantastic conditions, ranging from thermal off the slope to full ballast.
Having lost the use of the Electric Wizard I didn't particularly relish chucking off my
two top competition models, the Skorpion or Viking, into totally dead air. So I
struck a deal with Alexis Marechal to buy the Miraj 30.8 off him that I mid-aired with
last year.
Without a shadow of doubt this has been one
of the best decisions I've made. This has to be the perfect model for sport flying at La
Muela. It is light, thermals on nothing, is thoroughly aerobatic and with a sensible CG
and a little reflex can actually fly hands off inverted. Indeed it's hard to get across
just how well mannered and enjoyable to fly this plane is. The icing on the cake is that
it is incredibly tough, and the fuselage keeps the wing well clear of any rocks on
landing.
I flew the Miraj non-stop for several days,
thermalling, aerobating and DSing. It is the only model I have ever launched into
completely no wind without a twinge of doubt about my sanity. I had planned to sell it
when I got back but there's no way I'm parting with this. I've always enjoyed Aeromod
planes but actually owning one is a revelation, you should try it!
Wednesday's are the highlight of the sport
flying week at La Muela. All the local guys turn up with the sole intent of enjoying
themselves with flying, eating and general merriment. They always go out of there way to
include the Brits in their antics and it makes for a superb time.
I finished off my trip with another fabulous
day with Al and Berta, which included a trip to Modelismo Vazques Ramirez near the airport. This is possibly the best
model shop for serious glider fliers I have ever been in. It's not quite as big as some of
the German ones but they had everything from the smallest hard to get items to moulded
gliders. The guided tour ended up poking around in the shop's cellar which, along with
other interesting stuff, was a photo of one of the shop guys with Juan Pablo Montoya, who
has a house in Madrid and visits the shop regularly. Ain't that cool!
Thanks to everyone at the competition and
the crazy Wednesday sport fliers who make these trips simply unmissable.
Thanks
to BarkWeb for the webspace.
Click on any photo to see a larger version
Results are after the photos and the full
spreadsheet is here.
