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Cap Blanc Nez on the coast of France OS Map Thumbnail. If you click on the Cap Blanc Nez Thumbnail you will see a full screen Detailed Map of the area, the small yellow circles mark the sites I have been lucky enough to try out. |
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Slope Soaring Cap Blanc Nez, France. (or Aspargus ruined by Red Stuff) What with all the F&M restrictions a small group of ISA members (Pete Weston, Gill Doonan, Adrian Smith, John Hacker, Barry Martin and myself) went sloping in France yesterday (Weds 24th April 2001)! We all made our way to Folkestone on Tuesday pm and stayed in a Travel Inn about 5 mins from the EuroTunnel terminal - That evening we went out to a good restaurant, Rachel, Adrians wife, had suggested "Pauls Restaurant", and very good it was too. A few bottles of wine and several laughs later we made our way back to the Hotel. The next morning we caught the 8:50am train over and then drove for about ten or fifteen mins to Cap Blanc Nez - It was really windy, blowing 25 mph and gusting to 30 mph. We took a recce around the site. A road runs right around it. I learnt later from a Belgian pilot that this was were Rommel stood as he looked out to sea with the Cliffs of Dover on the Horizon - There were the remains of several old buildings and underground passages and craters from shelling in the surrounding hill side. |
- "The Locals Ridge - Pete (white trousers) is flying his Graffiti and the local flyer (below right) apparently flies there every day if he can! The point that we walked out to is on the far right of this picture from here you can see the car park below much clearer in the next picture". |
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I ballasted up the E-SR, and promptly chucked it off the slope we had selected.....Later when a French guy arrived he told me that the slope we had chosen to fly from is the WORST slope for turbulence!! Poor E-SR went wing up, correction, other wing up, correction, wing up, correction about 5 or six times whilst I tried to penetrate....Flight time lasted about 6 secs and then a gust smashed it on the floor breaking the wing! Meanwhile Adrian had successfully launched his mini-ellipse, John his Zagi and Barry his 50 inch sloper (I have forgotten the name of it!) - Once they had sufficient height, the turbulence calmed off and it was much smoother air they said. I believe John had the shortest flight of .3 sec, according to Pete, but that was because he had his ailerons reversed on his Zagi. Being made of foam it didn't cause any damage. |
- "Seagulls show us where the lift is - the point is now on the left of the picture". Cap Gris Nez is the headland jutting out into the sea on the horizon. |
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The slopes all looked very good, but the landing areas left a little to be desired. As we really wanted to get some of the scale planes out Pete and Gill decided to take a quick trip down to Cap Gris Nez about 15 miles down the coast to see if it had any better landing areas. Whilst they were away, Adrian put his Calypso together and attempted a landing behind the slope. All looked to be going well, he had opted to come in fast and it was only in the last seconds when he had levelled out that a down gust from some curl over pushed the plane to the ground. He was only a foot or so off the deck and the ground was quite bouncy so there was no damage. All I had left to fly was the ASH26 or my Electric Esprit! I waited around for ages trying to make a decision - during which time a French bloke stopped where we were parked (Adrian, Barry and John were all flying) and told me that we had selected the worst part to fly on, and that the "locals" normally fly "la bas" (Over there) and indicated that we should make slope side landings just below there. When I told the others, Adrian, Barry and John all headed over there walking around the bowl whilst flying over to the slope that the French Guy had suggested. |
- "The Turbulent Ridge - The car in the background is originally where we tried to fly from". |
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Eventually I plucked up the courage to put a flight pack (for CG of course) in the Electric Esprit and chuck it off. Whilst I was putting it together, Pete and Gill got back and reported that Cap Gris Nez was useless in this wind direction, so we were stuck with where we were. The other three had now landed in the area suggested by my informant, and were now basking in the sunshine in the landing area. Pete had suddenly got the urge to fly and was about to put his Graffiti together, then decided that we may as well drive around to the edge above where other friends were sat. As the E-Esprit was ready to go I got Gill to launch me (this time with no major buffeting) the model tracked out from the slope (with aid of some down elevator of course!) and I strolled around to where my friends were sat. Landing was in fact quite easy on this part of the slope, and so we elected to stay. I left my model and Tx and walked back to my car to bring it around closer to where we were flying from. When I got back, I discovered that another local had arrived and so we had all moved higher up the slope to where they usually fly from. At about 2pm the slope was suddenly besieged by a group of local fliers and the sky was full of models. They were all very friendly and offered advice on the best place to land and where they fly for other directions etc. |
- "The Notice board showing the area". |
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My best flight of the day was when seeing John head off to another point on the slope, I decided to join him. It was only about 100 yards away and there was a worn pathway that was well used (a whole group of school kids on a, presumably historical, school trip came traipsing up it at one point) leading over to it. If you can imagine it, there was a saddle between where the locals flew and the point we were headed for. In fact the soaring was much easier from here, there was a part of an old building that you could shelter from the strong wind whilst flying, but even better you could see all the way to the bottom of the slope, which I have always found makes flying much easier as you can "see" better where the lift is likely to be. Adrian came and joined us, we all agreed that the soaring was much better he and that the locals must be just too lazy to walk down there. Although the wind was very strong all day (not a bad thing of course) the weather remained superb, we were lucky enough to have that usual coastal effect where the coast was all in sunshine but inland there were huge thunderheads growing and you could see it raining. |
- "John's wrapped up warm which shows how cold it was despite the sun shine". |
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A quick visit to the "Duty Free" shop at the Eurotunnel terminal in Calais allowed us to buy in some very cheap drink and get a bite to eat before we boarded the train and got whisked back to England. It was a great adventure and one that I hope we repeat at some time in the future. |
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