And there's a movie too!

Gijs produced this nice video about our (non)championship. He makes it look like we had the best week of flying :-)

Belgian Open Hanggliding Championship 2014 Laragne from Gijs Wanders on Vimeo.

Comp dinner

The comp dinner will be held at the auberge de lagrand, in Lagrand, just west of Eguyians. Drinks are served from 8 PM.

A non-competition

It's over. Since the weather conditions yesterday didn't provide us a single thermal within reach, we won't have a valid Belgian Open nor a 2014 Belgian Champion. We were standing beneath thick cloud cover on launch with almost nil-wind conditions. The clouds looked nice above Aspres, but the free flyers who went there weren't able to launch due to back wind. A task was set, but it never looked possible to glide far enough to reach a thermal. I finally launched on the North side and had the smoothest glide out to the camping and laid out a cross for those wanting to attempt a spot landing. Sports class pilot Dawson excelled and produced this beautiful landing, right on the spot. That was some proper landing technique! Oh, the task was actually scored. The winner has 0 points.

Day 5 - No task after all

We woke up with a forecast for extremely unstable weather, but with a chance of dryer air flowing in from the West during the day. We decided to head to Aspres and not set up the gliders until the first (few?) storms/showers would have passed.

The weather turned out to be exactly as predicted. Very unstable and by 13:30 we were sitting in heavy rain caused by a nearby storm. No lightning though.

Once the rain passed, a few of us were still hopeful and started rigging the gliders. Lots of pilots weren't convinced at all because we continued to see big clouds and rain showers all around (including a few rumbles of thunder).

The waiting continued and by 3 o'clock, it looked like a launchable breeze was going to develop. A task was set and we briefed the pilots. At the same time, the safety committee received a report of heavy rain at Sisteron and the task was canceled. It turned out that this was a little early, as many pilots flew immediately after and had a very enjoyable flight from Aspres back to the camping. But, even if the task would have been started, it is questionable whether we would have been able to fly it, since a big cloud started developing over Laragne by the time I started my final glide into the camping. I want to thank the safety committee for their efforts in advising the meet director. They do not have an easy task in these conditions.

At least we were able to fly and we finally could enjoy a landing beer. Let's hope for 2 more flyable days and a valid comp. Today should be flyable, but it might be difficult to find a suitable launch (west winds in Laragne, NW in Aspres...)

Day 4 - Task 1 stopped & not valid

Today we had set an 87 km task. Rather short because of the risk for overdevelopment. And indeed, only 40 minutes after the first start gate at 13:30, the heavens opened right next to the first turnpoint we were about to take. The 2nd turnpoint was already under the same big cloud and our last turnpoint, Hongrie was already close to another thunderstorm. So, although the flying was beautiful, it was impossible to complete the task in a safe way and the task was stopped.

A significant number of pilots did not immediately notice that the task was stopped and some even flew a serious part of the task, despite flying with fear. We cannot stress enough that, even if the task would not be stopped, we would expect sensible behaviour from all pilots. If you are scared of the clouds you are flying below, you should not be flying anymore and should have looked for a place to land before.

May we also ask to report back in time. In these conditions, it is very important for us to know that everybody has safely landed. Thank you :-)

The pilot above is clearly confident in his gust front judgement... and by now we're sitting in a downpour again. Thunder, lightning, the whole show is on.

3 Days Canceled

Today was canceled as well due to high winds. Tomorrow the winds should lie down, so we are still hopeful.

Bad weather...

The task was canceled for Monday 21st and we have postponed today's briefing to 11 AM hoping that the winds will die down.

Sunday, July 20th - no task

We woke up with the sound of thunder this morning and combining that with the windy and rainy predictions for today, the task was canceled. Quite a few pilots went to see the Tour de France pass by. We could use some prayers for better weather, because it looks that the weather gods plan to keep us earthbound until Wednesday...

Registration

Registration is going to be open at the Larage-Monteglin camping from 17h00 - 20h00 today.

5 Day to go!

And the competition is nicely shaping up. Please do not pay any registration fees online anymore, you're too late for that, just pay at HQ. Otherwise, in France, we won't know you've paid. Thank you! Here's the pilot list so far:

• Bouchet Blaise
• Michel Bodart
• Dawson Brown
• Malcolm Brown
• Julia Burlachenko
• Artem Chervonenko
• Marcello Ciarlo
• Nils Ole Dalby
• Markus Ebenfeld
• Pedro Garcia
• Tom Haagdorens
• Kurt Huyghe
• Matjaz Klemencic
• Chrigel Küpfer
• Matthias Kurzthaler
• Anton Lopatin
• Konstantin Lukyanov
• Ievgen Lysenko
• Oleg Matvieiev
• Claudia Mejia
• Jean Claude Moreau
• Richard Murphy
• Eduardo Oliveira
• Martí Pararols
• Dariusz Perenc
• Justinas Pleikys
• Josep Maria Pujades Rodero
• Cliff Rice
• Sasha Serebrennikova
• Pieter Speeleveld
• Arne Tänzer
• Walentin Teraud
• Jordi Tubert Saubi
• Araldo van de Kraats
• Gijs Wanders
• Jochen Zeischka

10 Days to go!

It's now less then 2 weekd to go before the Belgian Nationals start! We have also noticed that the first task day, on July 20th, the Tour de France has a stage from Gap to Nimes. They should be leaving the Laragne area pretty early in the morning and I am not aware of any NOTAM's yet. So, fingers crossed that we do not lose that day. It could be welcome news for the Austrians heading down from the Tyrolian comp, though...

Registration opened

Dear pilots! The registration for the 2014 Belgian Open is opened. Please note that the championship is not yet on the FAI calendar, but expect that to happen within 2 weeks.

2014 Belgian Nationals: July 20th - 26th

For 2014, the Belgian Nationals are returning to Laragne. Task days will be July 20th until July 26th. The Belgian Nationals will be held in the same spirit as the past years: we want a competition which provides a fair competition for seasoned competition pilots, but it also has to be a safe and fun experience for those who are new to competition flying or fly less often. To achieve that goal

• tasks on good weather days are shorter than the day would allow for the top pilots, to give everyone a fair chance to fly a serious part of the course
• tasks are set with safe landing areas in mind; the Laragne area with its wide valleys is very well suited for this and if we need to cross areas where more caution would be required, pilots will be well informed about the landing opportunities
• we try to avoid having really difficult sections in the course, as much as the weather permits of course

Don't fear, the event is still a competition where we want the best pilot to win, so we won't be setting mini-tasks. But we won't be throwing 200 km tasks at the participants, no matter how nice the weather is... Just so you know in advance ;-)

There will be a sports class and a rigid class if at least 5 pilots turn up. So, if you plan to participate in one of those, get in touch with your peers and make sure they turn up as well! Women don't need to do so, they are treated nice no matter what :-)

The registration form will be up shortly and the same should apply to our event on the FAI calendar. More news soon!