Travels with a Motorglider
Guy Westgate set off from the south of England in his DG-400
in summer 1998 for what ha calls "A European Wundersegelflug"
The article was published in the new magazine "Motorgliding International"
In 1997 I proved the concept of touring in my motorglider with a fifteen-day trip from England to Spain. Early last spring I was getting desperate to taste flying freedom again and started to make sketchy plans for a bigger European adventure.
After a little devious dealing and by nothing short of luck, I had four weeks leave allocated for late July 98, and that was all I needed. Time, lots of maps, a sleeping bag and toothbrush and, of course, a glider!
By the start of my leave, my DG-400 had just completed its annual check, but was still with McLean Aviation at Rufforth, some 250 miles north of my home field, Parham, on the south coast. I made a rather rash decision to stick two fingers up at convention and thumb a ride north to start the adventure from Rufforth, leaving the car and trailer at home. I hadn't considered hitching since my student days, but l was quickly reminded that one's perception of fellow man swings rapidly depending on how long you are left standing in the rain with your thumb out.
Rufforth's weather did not look promising for my first day of flying. There was a persistent westerly wind and a mixture of weak wave and broken showers from dawn. Rain was still in the air by mid morning so I decided to fill the centre fuel tank for maximum endurance. I took my first opportunity to get airborne and climbed high enough to glide to the power stations on the Humber, which I was sure would give me my first thermal. As soon as I had put the engine away, the sky filled with sink and I arrived far too low. Ferrybridge was much bigger than I had expected but for my purposes it was useless!
Steam from the cooling towers was hardly clearing the chimneys before spilling over the sides. Even though I could see thin, yellow smoke tearing away from the tallest chimney, all I found was turbulence and a poisonous smell which burnt my lungs.
Thank God for engines! Forty-five kilometers south the clouds began to look a little more formed and my first weak thermal lifted me abeam RAF Scampton. The cloud base rose to just over 3000 ft and I enjoyed improving conditions for the next three hours until close to the Silverstone race circuit and the next weather front.
The clouds began to look foreboding, almost heavy, and near Oxford the first fat drops hit the canopy like hail. A long black cloud lay to my west and a dead, overcast sky stretched as far as I could see further to the south. I hate rain and the DG's wings like it even less! I turned away, but within two minutes realized it was hopeless - I was going down. Destined to sink straight into a field, I resorted to the engine once again.
I continued towards Parham with a mixture of engine and very wet cloud climbs. Although the lift was often strong in the building Cu-Nims, the sink was incredible and only when my computer told me I was 2000 ft above glide with only 15 km to run was I confident that I might make it home. As I rolled to a stop, the rain started again and continued long into the night.
I now had one of my hardest decisions - to continue or to wait? I was desperate to cross the English Channel without help from my Rotax engine, but calculated I would need 4000 ft at Dover for a comfortable glide to France. Waiting at Parham, with a 2000 ft cloud base, I was wasting valuable time as I could have been picking my way slowly cross-country. For the next three days the weather was at best uninspiring and at worst miserable! 
By Day 4 I had had enough. With a forecast of thermals to 3000 ft in the south, it had to be good enough. The wind was strong from the south-west and when I got airborne at midday, low, deep streets ran downwind for several miles. I reached cloud base just short of Eastbourne and was surprised to see there were already showers inland, despite the cloud tops not appearing to be very high.
I picked up convergence lift just before Hastings. This gave me a glimmer of hope as I climbed to 3500 ft above a jumble of cloud, but luck was never on my side. As I neared Dover the convergence dumped me and I knew a "natural" crossing was totally out of the question.
I called London Flight Information and they patiently took my details for the flight plan . I declared Calais my destination hoping to cancel the flight plan once clear of the FIR boundary. Using last year's experience, I believed I did not need to clear Customs in either UK or France, so l was free to cross.
I climbed only 2000 ft extra with the engine and shut down at 5500 ft. There was steady sink initially, which I associated with the weak sea breeze circulation, but only a few kilometers offshore the air was calm. The wind, however was not calm and London Information twice warned me that the 4000 ft wind forecast was in excess of 40 kts. Thankfully it was mainly crosswind so it made little difference.
Once confident I could make French soil, I tried to cancel my flight plan. London first confirmed it was cancelled and then corrected themselves; they couldn't cancel, would I talk to Calais? The French controllers were not so friendly and just as I crossed the coastline I was instructed "Divert to England! You have made an illegal flight plan!".
London again assured me a radio filed flight plan was legal and valid but Calais was having none of it. The only solution they offered was to land at Calais which was now reporting surface gusts of 28 kts.
As I had expected, Customs were nowhere to be seen at the airport. The local fireman-refueller-handling agent flamboyantly proclaimed his multipurpose role, so I paid my landing fee and left as fast as I could.
I caused the tower fairly obvious annoyance as I could not give them a destination. As soon as I was clear of the zone, I informed them I was changing frequency then used my favorite switch in the cockpit: Radio "Off".
There were low, patchy cumulus 20 km downwind of Calais, but the thermals were being torn to shreds by the wind. I ballooned along in broken lift for over an hour but the wind was turning more westerly and I realized I was not going to clear Brussels' airspace. My parachute was growing increasingly uncomfortable as I had tried to wedge far too much behind it, so when I joined two gliders in a weak thermal close to the Belgian border, I let them lead me back to their home field, Kortrijk-Wevelgern.
It dawned on me not long after landing that I had no Belgian money - I had never really considered I might end up there. Fortunately, this did not dampen the hospitality of the two aero clubs on the field and my glider was soon tucked up in a hangar and I was tucked away in a bar with Belgian white beer, good food and a shower and caravan for later.
Wonderful people! The next morning one of the club members took me to the local petrol station with my collapsible "jerry can". He even paid for my six liters of fuel when we realized the station couldn't take my credit card, so I felt doubly guilty when half of it had leaked over his front seat!
A heavy inversion below 1000 meters was forecast but initially conditions looked good and a posse set oft south-west to help me clear Brussels. Within 25 km of Wevelgem it went blue and all but one Discus stuck it out for a further 15 km. Pressing on fast looked foolish but I wanted to keep on the move. I said my goodbyes and tracked further south for a very frustrating day of low saves, scrappy climbs and hot blue sunshine.
I passed Froidchapelle, a gliding club next to a big lake and forest, at about 3 p.m. and almost gave up there and then as it looked so pretty. I found a last minute thermal upwind of the lake and, besides, I still hoped to get out of Belgium.
At 5 p.m. the Ardennes Forest started to loom larger and the wooded slopes were pushing uncomfortably close to the inversion. I took my last thermal over the famous Chateau Laveax St Anne and glided to St Huberts, the Belgian National Centre.
There were a couple of weak thermals close to the field so after watching the circuit for 15 minutes, I landed on the grass and rolled close to the hangar complex and trailers, still with no money. The students at the centre all told me how lucky I was to arrived on such a good day as it hadn't stopped raining for the last two months. Even so, big thunderstorms and hail were forecast for the next night, so I was very keen to get my glider out of danger with no hangar space available and no trailer to derig safely.
There was an even heavier inversion forecast for the morning of Day 6, and though I delayed my take-off until 2 p.m., I struggled for two hours never getting higher than 2000 ft above the Ardennes. There was a 25kt south-westerly, tearing at every thermal and causing extreme turbulence in the lee of the bigger hills. I had no destination in mind when I set off, but I was soon mindful to land before I made a mistake with the wind and the weak conditions.
A pilot from Wevelgem had recommended a friendly club, Aeroclub Moenchsheide on the banks of the Rhine, and had given me the GPS coordinates. Once I had safely cleared Luxembourg, I plugged the numbers into my GPS and set off on glide to a destination that wasn't on my map and I had no idea of its elevation - total faith. I arrived in the circuit at Bad Breisig with almost 1000 ft to spare.
They were winching from the site as it was their first open day of the summer, but it was only marginally soarable. The club once again found space in their hangar for my glider and I got down to the serious task of discovering really good beer!
I hoped I might have a two hour flying window the next day between more weather fronts and took the opportunity to be a soaring tourist, exploring the Mosel valley from Koblenz to Cochem and the Rhine as far south as Frankfurt. Conditions were better than forecast but I didn't spot the advancing rain quickly enough and by the time I had limped back to Bad Breisig, the hangar had long been closed.
The next day looked superb on paper and an ASW-22 BLE,- quite the biggest glider I have ever seen, was readied early in preparation for a huge distance. He self launched at 1.000 hours. I followed at 10.30 to track north-east but I was way too early for the conditions in that area and found no lift at all. After my third powered climb I was seriously low on fuel and dropped into a little strip at Eisernhardt to wait for thermals to develop properly.
It was an impressive site, cut out of the forest on the side of a hill. The place was deserted but after 30 minutes of waiting I could see some cumulus and re-launched straight into 2 kts for a solid day of racing flying.
On a big map in the clubhouse at Bad Breisig I had noticed that the Ruhr was only a few kilometers off the edge of my German map. I studied the airspace east of Dortmund and felt confident I could find my target from memory. I was surprised just how quickly I recognized the huge reservoirs and the ill-fated Moehne Dam visited in 1943 by Scampton's Dam Busters. I flew over the dam a little higher than they had and left east to the even bigger reservoirs on the Eder.
I wanted to fly down the eastern side of Frankfurt's airspace and visit Poppenhausen and the Wasserkuppe, but the sky looked very dead east of the Edersee so I retraced my steps south-west, back down the Rhine. Cloud base was up to 7.000 ft and for a couple of hours 4 to 5 kts thermals were commonplace. I continued south until conditions changed for the worse on the high ground west of Mannheim and just scraped over the last wooded ridge to give a long still glide to Bruchsal in the Rhine valley.
A trough line had passed in the night leaving Day 9 with a forecast of more storms to the east but stable conditions for the rest of the area. I went shopping for postcards whilst waiting for the inversion to break and talked tactics with Alvin Guentert, a very experienced local pilot. Cumulus were popping off the ridge as I walked back to the airfield, but I could also see signs of the next front as thin bands of cirrus were beginning to stack up on the western horizon.
I climbed straight towards the high ground to the east of the field and then followed the Rhine south. I found my glider's birthplace, the DG Flugzeugbau factory just south of Bruchsal. It felt quite strange taking my glider home. I passed silently, and probably, unnoticed, and continued down the edge of the escarpment to Karlsruhe where my glider had first flown almost exactly nine years before.
I needed to keep clear of Stuttgart's airspace to the east so I had only one real choice, the Black Forest. I was quite intimidated by the name, but although I felt it was not particularly glider friendly I found good thermals.
Alvin had told me to expect wave interference in most weather conditions here and the wind was in excess of 15 kts. He had also suggested a very different route around the top of Stuttgart, but I could see thunderstorms building to the east so felt quite vindicated with my decision. The cumulus were cycling with the variable top cover and occasionally the larger clouds would grow bizarre wave sculpted tops, but I still could not find useful wave lift.
I maintained steady progress until reaching the Schwabian Alps where conditions suddenly became frustratingly fickle and I ended up low several times.
I resisted the temptation to take the easy option of the engine until I had passed the highest ground, and then only after I had made a 50 km glide from the last good cumulus clouds, out into the blue and found nothing. The AIps were still 30 km south of me and I decided I would have to motor to the start of the foothills in the hope the slopes may help break the inversion.
I did not see any cumulus for almost an hour until I was on the higher slopes above Kempten and the Iller valley. I was concentrating so much on the changing weather that I almost didn't notice the mountains had suddenly got very big and I was definitely excited. Not only had I made it to the Alps but I also knew another of my dreams was about to become a reality.
I have dreamt of flying over Schloss Neuschwanstein ever since I can remember. My favorite childhood film, "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang", was filmed there and I have heard that Disney modeled their fantasy castle on Mad King Ludwig's fairy tale design. l knew the castle was on the edge of the Alps but did not want to see it for the first time on the distant horizon.
I decided I could sneak through a little stub of Austria and surprise myself with a sudden view of it by approaching from the south-west. I tracked into the high mountains quite easily now and with a cloud base just over 8.000 ft, few peaks were in cloud.
I crossed the Austrian border into the Lech valley a little too easily, as there was lift everywhere. All too quickly I learnt the lesson of complacency. As I glided back towards Germany, every side vaIIey passed had either an impenetrable grey mist or an advancing storm. How the weather changes!
I started to pray that I could reach the safety of Reutte. I eventually passed 2.000 ft above the Austrian airfield with the edge of a storm only a kilometer away, sheets of rain completely blocking the valley exit to the east. Thankfully my route north was still just clear and I scraped back into Germany around Mt. Soiling, far lower than I had intended and into a tiny patch of sunshine. I contacted lift at the same time that I glimpsed the castle and let out a whoop that shook the glider.
As soon as I was back high enough I checked out the landing strip at Fuessen and then, when it appeared the rain was staying in the mountains, I started to explore. There was weak lift in front of Tegelburg and I spent a few minutes swooping above the famous hang glider take-off ramp by the cable car station.
The lift continued at least 20 km down the ridge but I turned at Oberammergau and headed back to the castle. I met up with two hang gliders, both twisting and turning above the only patch of sunlight left on Soiling. After half an hour only one remained. Having cruised around each other for a while, I saw him give me a wave then dive forwards and do a spectacular wing-over, returning back almost level with me.
He then gestured "Your go". Like a red rag to a bull, I shouted "Game on!" to myself and we spent the next half an hour looping and zooming round each other, just maintaining altitude in the weak lift until it was noticeably darker and I felt it was time to find Fuessen again.
I had only been on the deserted airstrip for ten minutes when a car drove up at speed. Two figures approached purposefully and I feared I had committed some terrible international crime and my time was up.
I breathed a massive sigh of relief when I discovered it was the two hang glider pilots who wanted to meet the mad glider pilot! The inevitable rain started soon afterwards, but it didn't stop my new friends Gabi and Gunther from taking me for a meal and then on a two-hour midnight trek around the floodlit castle.
The next day was only fit for mountain biking around the castles but the following day's forecast was for a strong north-westerly with more storms later. Gunther wanted photographs of the DG and agreed to find a vantage point on Tegelburg mountain behind the castle if I could arrange to fly past. I spent the most exhilarating half an hour of my life in rough ridge lift, swooping around the castle's turrets and the Queen Mary suspension bridge spanning the gorge above the castle. I wonder how many Japanese tourists got an unusual picture that day?
I noticed the first advancing shower too late and scurried the 6 km back to Fuessen in light drizzle, just making the glide. What an adventure! But where next? To start back to Olde Blighty or brave the mountains?
A run of bad weather had me stuck in the Bavarian Alps but thankfully by the twelfth day of my European adventure, the morning TV forecast was free of thunderstorms. It was Sunday and the gliding club at Fuessen was open. Two of the local pilots offered to lead me through the mountains to Switzerland, an offer I could not refuse.
I drew last place in the winch queue (I was not permitted to self launch from Fuessen) and it then took me a frustrating 30 minutes to get established and join Charlie in his LS-1 above the field. I quickly realized that communication was going to be almost impossible as my German was barely good enough to order a beer and Charlie's English was no better. I could not raise the second pilot on the radio and I didn't see him again.
Charlie started off like a thing possessed and we quickly dropped into Austria, just south of Fuessen, even though the conditions were very average. There were a few paragliders around the peaks close to Reutte and I followed the LS-1 obediently across the Lech valley and on to the south-east slopes of the Lechtaler Alps.
The weather was marginal but still Charlie pressed on up almost blind valleys and over impossibly high passes. There were times where I simply did not know what to do next. I was desperate not to get suckered into "sheep" mode as at any time I might lose my guide and be left on my own. I was often quite frightened as we had not passed a field I could land in for hours and the engine was never an option as there was nowhere to even crash safely if it didn't start.
Cloud base was variable and we would sometimes clear a spur and find ourselves a 1.000 ft above cloud. Sometimes I couldn't see a safe route out of the valley we were in - sometimes I couldn't even see how we had got in! When I'm old I want to think back on this trip with happy memories; Charlie was trying damn hard to make sure I wasn't going to get old.
Both the thermalling speed and sink rate of my DG-400 was higher than the LS-1, but I think I worked harder centering in lift so would occasionally out climb him and wait. Once we passed into Switzerland I got disorientated until about four hours into the flight when I was convinced Charlie had made his first big mistake.
Neither of us were climbing, there was only one patch of sunlight in the entire valley and we were slowly sinking over it. As I slid down beneath the top of the spur I had to backtrack down the valley and I was convinced I would lose Charlie. I had to retrace my steps almost 5 km before I eventually found lift, but if the Gods had been shirking for a moment, they gave me their fullest attention afterwards - back at cloud base I found the ever patient Charlie waiting.
I recognized the much wider Rhine valley as we pushed west and then after following a descending cloud street for almost 20 minutes, we cleared the Furkapass into the Rhone valley, the biggest in the Alps, leading out of the mountains to Geneva.
At the end of the cloud street I picked a slightly better route than the LS-1 and within minutes Charlie was a speck beneath me. I called to him to say where to find lift but he did not understand, so I watched him descend to the south side of the valley as I hooked into one of the strongest thermals of the day. I took the opportunity to take a peek north to the Berner Oberland and some of the most awesome mountains in the Alps. I remembered being in awe of a picture of Judy Leaden on a hang glider over the Aletsch glacier ten years ago, and here it was, under my wing!
I did not want to land in Switzerland because of customs and immigration complications and I also felt it would be an advantage to cross all the Swiss military danger areas in the Rhone valley as they were closed for the weekend. I resisted the temptation to sightsee too long above the snow fields behind the Eiger and Jungfrau and I dropped back into the Rhone valley where I eventually spotted Charlie who had climbed back a few thousand feet.
I lost the LS-1 again as quickly as I had found him near Brig. He didn't wait this time so I was surprised when he called an hour later to say he was "flying at Monte Rosa". I decided I should try and make Italy.
High sheets of altocu were coming in from the west over Weisshorn, towering 3.000 ft above, and I turned the corner up the side of Dom, one of the highest Swiss peaks, at 14.900 ft. I was level with the snow line at 10.000 ft but the mountainside was in shadow and although had I reached Zermatt comfortably, still I couldn't find any lift to get me clear of the Matterhorn.
My next catastrophe was rain, which started without warning and had me failing towards the valley floor, almost in free fall. I limped back to the Rhone where it took me a further hour to scrape back up to altitude.
It was now getting late and Weisshorn's shadow was covering the eastern side of the valley completely.
I was sure there would still be lift from the sunny peaks but I could not make the transition to that height. Halfway up the valley towards Zermatt again I hit strong sink and realized I was going to be possibly 1.000 ft short of the pass, so I started the engine very cautiously. It barely gave enough power to climb at all but I made 12.000 ft and just cleared the Matterhorn for a long glide into Valle d'Aosta.
The air was hazy with pollution and it was almost dark when I started to descend over Aosta's airfield. There were no replies to my radio calls and I landed on the main runway with a very strong valley wind. I had been airborne for almost 9 hours 30 minutes and was shattered. Within the hour it was dark and as the airfield was deserted, I could neither escape the perimeter security fencing nor secure my glider.
In the end I found the airfield "Follow Me" car and tied the wing to the roof. Then with the only other option being the glider, I slept in the car.
I spent the next day resting in the rain and talked to a few instructors. I recounted my mistakes of the previous day only to be quoted Oscar Wilde in Italian, "Experience - is the name everyone gives to their mistakes". I was quite sure I would have many more "experience".
As the front cleared on day 14, I explored the head of the Aosta valley and cruised the gigantic southern flanks of the Mt. Blanc Massif, a rock wall so enormous as to be almost exaggeration proof. The scale of the glaciers spilling down towards Courmayeur was deceptive and at first glance it was hard to decide if the blocks of blue ice were 10 ft or 100 ft from my wing tip. It remained overcast all afternoon and my chances of escaping the valley faded as all four passes were plugged by low cloud.
I was beginning to feel trapped in Italy and took my opportunity to leave the next day. I set off too early and it took almost an hour to brake the inversion and get to the top of the mountain just south of the airfield at 11.000 ft, I flew west towards Courmayeur again, but today was very different as there were no cumulus and the thermals were weak and rough. Mt. Blanc looked even more impressive than before with a thin veil of wave cloud hiding the very summit, but with no cumulus to guide me to lift, I was struggling to stay up.
Occasionally wisps of cloud would appear above the very highest peaks, but by 14.30 I had not broken the inversion again and was getting frustrated. I decided to try for the Petit Col De St Bernard, still having only covered 50 km and now two hours into the flight. A very rough broken climb in the middle of the valley gave me a very marginal glide for the pass and I was off. Had I known just how marginal I would never have tried. I just prayed the luck on my St. Christopher medal hadn't worn smooth.
The wind was funneling through the pass like a massive venturi. As the headwind increased, so did the sink. The road up over the pass snaked laboriously for miles. I contemplated a road landing if I missed the top
by a few feet - an engine start this low was already out of the question. I had to almost lift my feet to clear the hut at the top and then I was through. I'm sure the cars close by could hear my screams of delight. I had escaped Italy - to France!
However, the game was far from over. I guessed there was a heavy inversion on this side of the pass and I was desperate to get up to the higher mountains, but it was not to be, I found weak lift above some tiny hay fields over Moutiers and followed the winding valley to Albertville.
I guessed I had blown my chances today, so before Grenoble I turned the corner north to Chambery and with over 1500 ft above glide I was confident I could make the Challes Les Eaux only 15 km away.
As I rounded the Roche de Guet cliffs on the valley corner, the glider just fell from under me in the most extreme turbulence I have experienced. Within seconds, my comfortable glide was ever so tenuous. Into the Chambery valley I could slow down but I could still not see the field despite the GPS giving its range as only 5 km. I could see a K-13 above the next low ridge but I didn't know if I could reach it. I slipped around the end of the ridge and at 3 km the field appeared as I cleared the fast spur. Phew!
I dithered for a moment on the ridge to catch my breath and slowly started climbing. Ten minutes later I was in a position to explore again and ridge soared north to Dent du Nivo and the 15 km limestone ridge towering above Chambery and Lake Bourget. As I made my last turn back towards Challes Les Eaux, I could see Mt. Blanc shimmering almost 100 km away.
Again the club members found space in a hangar along with 30 or so other gliders and I was treated to an excellent evening of entertainment, stories and late warnings of turbulence caused by valley breezes!
Some of the local mountain experts advised me to start late the next day and wait for the inversion to break. Thermals were supposed to start early on the Massif de la Chartreuse ridge south of the field, so on day 16 I decided to launch above the first inversion and try to get a good start. I was quickly down to 4.000 ft and the wooded slopes below the limestone edge gave me little hope of strong thermals for the next couple of hours. It was going to be a day of more "experience".
I used the engine once again to get back above the inversion and this time found very rough lift above the rock falls in front of the ridge, which finally got me level with the top. At the end of the ridge above Grenoble I got greedy. I ignored advice to follow the ridge further southwest as there were no cumulus and turned south straight into the big mountains. It looked like a glider pilot's heaven, cumulus erupting from every peak!
I sank well below the inversion again crossing the Isere river and went for the first narrow valley entrance ahead - and flew straight into a trap. The steep wooded slopes were covered in monstrous power wires and after almost every beat looking for lift, I was forced into emergency maneuvering to miss wires dead ahead.
There were no landing options in the valley and although I held my own for almost half an hour, the deep green lush forest was giving nothing away and I started to lose out. Eventually I had to move out of the valley into an even tighter corner, but the Gods gave me the break I was after and a tiny thermal ripped off the shoulder I was passing, taking me with it.
The next five hours were some of the strongest, most amazing soaring experience I have had. Ten to 11 kts average climbs were normal and although there was a strong wind above the peaks, there were good cloud streets rising to 13.000 ft near Mt. Viso on the Italian border.
I stayed at St Auban where some English friends were based that night, but the spectacular weather did not last. After a very poor day flying locally with my wing camera mount, the gloom set in again.
By day 18 of my tour I decided I should start to get clear of the Alps. It could take me two days to get back home or it could take two weeks! The St Auban Met bureau was forecasting thunderstorms and lots of cloud by early afternoon, so I tried to escape early. I left to the north but by the time I had passed Gap I could see rain. I flew over the field of Aspres sur Buech under Juffan, a 5.000 ft south facing ridge, but the cloud was already streaming through the Col de Chabre pass. I cleared the pass but as I had no knowledge of the high ground in the Drome valley beyond, I could not consider an IMC glide to the Rhone and had to return to Aspres to wait for an improvement.
Small showers were tracking up the Durance valley and it was only a matter of time before the horizon was totally blocked by a wall of water that I could not avoid. I counted myself lucky I had an airfield so close and delayed landing until the last moment, when the edge of the rain was less than 1 km from the field.
What I saw happen next, I still cannot believe. I had watched the storm driving north relentlessly for twenty minutes but not one raindrop hit the airfield. By a twist of fate, the wall of rain, so heavy it looked almost white, just stopped dead in its tracks and two minutes later it was gone!
I again was offered hangar space as hail was forecast. Rain fell for much of the next day but a clear spell mid afternoon was enough to get airborne and take my chances, found sunlight and thermals on Aujour to the south-east of Aspres and then after crossing the Durance again heading east, I found weak ridge lift south of Cap on Boursier.
I spent two hours on Malup, but I was now heading away from home, so I cut my losses with a late landing at Gap. The rain started again a few minutes after I landed and I set about securing the glider and a place to sleep.
There was not a soul around. It was Sunday afternoon and the shops, restaurant and bars were all closed. By the time it was dark I realized the town was a good five miles walk away so I ate the last scraps of my emergency ration food.
Tired and frustrated, I found a new delivery of wheelie (trash) bins near the glider park. Not comfortable but needs must - I slept in a bin!
The rain didn't really stop the next day but the rainbows made it all worthwhile. By day 21 I was pulling my hair out and the front was now forecast to wave back towards us, with strong winds in the Rhone valley to the west. I did not want to wait for the official morning soaring brief as I could see the top cover advancing already, so I climbed west intending to use the engine to get as far away as I could.
I climbed 5.000 ft and cleared the Col de Chabre. After my next powered climb in the Drome valley I could see the lower cloud was filling in quite quickly to the north, but the ATIS broadcasts for both Valence and Lyon in the Rhone valley were still clear.
By Die the effects of the Mistral were more evident and the low stratus was filling the valley. Wave was not obvious until 70 km from Gap when I could see the smooth waterfall of cloud spilling over the northern valley edge start to kick up into great cloud chimneys.
I began to pick up sink and figured it had to be wave, so raced over to the edge of the first cloud tower, now churning up in the middle of the valley. If the lift was extreme, the sink was terrifying. I could look down to see the cloud tearing over the valley lip at possibly 40 or 50 kts, dissolving as soon as it descended only to be instantly thrown up again, in great boiling chunks.
The wave rotor crest reached well over 10.000 ft and I spent almost two hours in the rotor's cauldron, tumbling down at 25 kts then hooking into another churning bubble to be flung back up to the base of the crest.
As my hectic morning continued I remembered more of my Italian friend's Oscar Wilde quotes "One can live for years sometimes without living at all, and then all life comes crowding into one single hour". Well a single hour was quite enough. As the weather reports further west improved I was more confident of thermals in the Rhone valley and I left the wave at 11:30.
I was down to circuit height near Romans and cloud base was less than 3.000 ft, but I made progress, albeit slowly, crossing the Rhone at lunchtime. The thermals weren't strong and the next front was never far away.
Tracking north proved difficult with the strong wind and I hoped the thermals might improve over the higher ground of the Massif Central. I just cleared the Monts du Forez range, Pierre sur Haute at 5.300 ft still above me, when under a particularly fat, dark cumulus, a fine drizzle suddenly misted the canopy and I was going down!
I was surrounded by high ground and as cloud base started to lower, I had to call Clermont Ferrand tower and get permission to enter their airspace. Ten minutes later it was obvious that it was the next front and I diverted to Clermont, now in heavy rain. I could just maintain altitude under full power and the tower asked to report the field in sight, which I did with only 2 km to run.
I landed with the engine stowed and as I rolled to a stop on the grass runway, the tower apologized that they did not allow gliders at Clermont. As the controller spoke I raised the engine to taxi away and he instantly brightened his tone "But we do allow motorgliders. Welcome to Clermont Ferrand"!
The power aero club were initially a bit stuffy but soon the airfield manager came out to see the glider. He arranged both hangar space and clubhouse accommodation and even invited me home for a much needed shower and a meal on one condition - I did not mention to his wife that I had seen him smoking!
No problem! Maybe Clermont wasn't so bad?
Three weeks ago I had been desperate to reach the Alps, matched only later by my frustration at not being able to leave. Now I had finally escaped their grasp but would the weather ever clear enough to let me home?
I had escaped the Alps and was heading home, though I still had a long way to go. I had made Clermont Ferrand after bad weather had forced me down, but despite my uninvited arrival I was looked after well.
I was given a VIP guided tour of the tower in the morning before preparing myself with Met briefs and Notams. Taxiing away was embarrassing as I delayed an Air France Airbus A320 for a couple of minutes. There was a very strong tailwind and I couldn't keep the wing tip away from the edge lights on the taxi way. I had to get out of the glider three times to lift the wing clear.
I realized a childhood dream on take-off as they let me "buzz the tower" in true Top Gun style. When I was only 10 km to the north of the field they said goodbye. I was free again! I started north towards Vichy as cloud base would not let me get closer to the volcanoes to the west and Puy de Dome was still in cloud. The cloud dissolved soon after and I tracked west in a vain attempt to keep with the cumulus. But however I tried to pretend otherwise, it was blue to the north and that was the direction I had to go.
The inversion rose higher than I was expecting and by lunchtime 5.000 ft was common with 2 to 3 kts average. The landscape changed to big cereal fields and soon I spotted my first stubble fire. I have not seen them since they were banned in the UK years ago and had forgotten how emotive that smell was!
I passed the gliding club at Issoudun and saw the first wisps of a huge field alight in the distance, so I set off at 110 kts and arrived less than 1.000 ft straight into the top of the first giant mushroom of smoke. The lift was awesome. I have never heard my vario make a noise quite like it! The mechanical varios were useless and the averager settled for a moment on 17.8 kts. Less than five minutes later I was at the inversion, but not even this "rocket thermal" could dent it more than a couple of hundred feet. I looked down at the burnt out field beneath, the whole field torched in less than ten minutes.
Progress slowed as the agriculture changed in the wedge of ground between the Loire and the Chur rivers and it took almost two hours to make 60 km to Blois and my favorite chateau, Chambord.
I spotted the turrets just above the tree line from over ten miles away and arrived a little lower than was comfortable, but with superb views of the 17th century extravaganza. I even contemplated landing on the lawns, but figured self launching the next morning might be awkward and my trailer was still in the UK.
I never really got high again and after crossing the Loire decided to glide to the Blois-Vendome Aero Club. Once again, I was treated like a royal by the locals and had a very happy night wine tasting and recounting gliding tales.
The local farmers wasted no time the next morning setting light to their fields and I was soaring in the feu de chaume (stubble fires) by 10 a.m.. A strong stable sounding was reported but high temperatures in the afternoon would give good thermals. The French Nationals were on at Beynes and I met my first gaggle of 15m gliders near Chartres.
Conditions were blue but the visibility was excellent. I decided that with the easterly wind I was unlikely to get high enough for a Channel crossing, so passing Paris airspace I thought I would see just how close I could get to the Eiffel Tower and Versailles. The class A TMA steps down past Beynes but the circuit of GA airfield, St. Cyr L'Ecole, passes over the lakes to the west of Louis XIV's palace, Versailles.
I cheekily called the tower to ask for a routing through their overhead and glided under the Paris airspace until I was looking down on the most splendid chateau I have ever seen. The palace front looked long enough to ridge soar in a stiff breeze but I now had other problems. I joined the circuit at St. Cyr and they were good enough to let me thermal back to 1.500 ft and out west to a higher airspace limit.
As I moved nearer the coast, the inversion lowered and the thermals weakened. The air got a little hazier approaching Amiens and assuming it was sea air I accepted a glide to the airfield. The local pilots had had a very poor day and were not expecting much change for the next week - well at least it wasn't raining!
I had been away from the UK for three weeks and I was starting to miss some of the comforts of home. Blighty was tantalizingly close but the weather did not look promising. There was a well developed anticyclone over southern England dragging very stable sea air over the northern tip of France.
Although more than 70 km from the coast, there was sea fog the next morning that finally lifted at lunchtime, although an arriving Cherokee reported Le Touquet was still fog bound. I negotiated with the tower to extend my take-off window by an hour, but the controller didn't seem bothered and told me the customs I had ordered from Beauvais would probably not turn up anyway.
My first powered climb was to 6.000 ft and I passed the inversion well under 2.000 ft. I reached Boulogne VOR needing another powered climb and was at 6.000 ft again over the town, ready to make the 48 km glide to Lydd. I had 10 kts of headwind for the entire glide and could see the smoke from tankers,
mid Channel, showing a south-westerly drift. First landfall was Dungeness at just under 2.000 ft and I was disappointed to find soaring conditions very similar to France.
I flew via my favorite cliffs at Eastbourne but even the 500 ft peak at Beachy Head wasn't giving sufficient hill lift to soar, so I flew the entire three hour flight to Parham with no lift. Using the sawtooth climb-glide profile, I had to run the engine for a total of an hour, almost equal to the entire burn time for the last three weeks, but I was home at last! Over 100 hours of gliding and sights and memories of people I will always remember!
So what to do next year?
Any ideas for a bigger expedition are welcome.