I have however started to enjoy some limited success with the helico getting 4 or even 5 revs on occasion, so being sure its possible, although more difficult on a wing this size, decide to perfect or at least improve my technique in the coming days. The weather though has other Ideas, the daily flying times are becoming shorter, the people to really get the best advise from becoming fewer. Vince and Jan are the next to leave after ten weeks here, Francois, who actually taught them to fly with young Manu, who at 19 years of age can tumble with the best of them, are next. Cyrill who has been instructing a group with his father follow a few days later. This leaves another Francois, this time a French Canadian* his Argentinian friend Noel who is a pretty fair accro pilot himself, me, Jose a few locals and the occasional nomad.
*what is it they say about Canada...? They could have had French culture British know how and American engineering...instead they got American culture French know how and British engineering...lovely people though...

TheThinning of the Herd

Morning again...where did that come from...? fuzzy head...go back to sleep and wait for the afternoon.
Afternoon...thats better. Greasy bacon sarnie and off for training. The landing field as usual has some now very familiar faces around but numbers are starting to thin slightly as the comp is over and summer is nearly too. A couple of weeks will see the campsite empty, the pool close and even the diehard travelling pilots who have been around for months return to their various realities. I take more advise from Cyrill, who is one of the few competing accro pilots left around and the current French champ, Francois and Manu about helicos. Their advise is the same. I have come as far as I can on a full size wing and to really go further I need, like them, a smaller accro wing, maybe a 22 sq meter to start. I check for loose change down the back of the sofa but find nowhere near enough to buy one, I check my diary for elderly relatives who I should maybe make more effort to be nice to in an effort to boost any potential inheritance but come up blank there too so decide I will have to make do for now without infinity tumbles.

We get together in the landing field that eve and I invite them round for a plate of pasta. I cook the pasta they bring the beer and hash...everybody wins. We have an enjoyable evening discussing the various ways we have reached the point we are at(drunk and stupid), get even more drunk with some more French camped opposite and decide to go up the mountain for a moonlight fly down. This again, is not everybody’s cup of tea but we are far too drunk to pay any attention to the prophets of doom and head up to launch with a satanically giggling and drunken Jan on the roof of the jeep holding our kit down as I career drunkenly round the hairpins up the mountain. Its not so much the flying and landing in the moonlight but more the setting up in the pitch black, and the promises of people with triple vision to give you an accurate line check as you stagger forward and launch into a backwind that make the event. After a quick top to bottom more drinking and hilarity follows, things get a little fuzzy and I have no idea what time I crash but the campsite is so quiet you can hear the crickets dropping their pins.

The Magic Circle

The day after the comp I again meet Jose and Pache in the landing field and they invite me to sit and lunch with them. They have put a delicious salad together and as those of you who know me well can testify when we were in the S.A.S they taught us never to miss an opportunity to eat. I intend to fly more deep stalls today with lots of spins both of which I am very comfortable with. The deep stall is what I want to really experiment with to perfect a faster entry therefore keeping the wing more straight and stable to ease the transition to helico. I put a couple more hours work into this while watching Vince and Jan perfecting their wingovers and the big boys doing tumbles.

In the end the top 10 were all guys who we have been flying and becoming friendly with over the few weeks earlier. Finished results were, first place Raul with Horatio second Felix and Alex next with Francois, who led us to Ager that evening before, fifth and then the Accro Canaries. My other new buddy Pache is chuffed to have come 14th out of 26 in his first comp even though he and quite a few others are again drying their kit out in the sun after spinning helico landings and death spirals into the lake. With our optimism exceeded only by our motivation now we decide to race back to Organya for the evening flight and start the spinning. I begin to try helicos which are well deserving of their reputation and realise this is not something I can get in a quick session in one evening.

The comp standard continues to rise this final day with more pilots than ever hitting the raft with the timing and moves becoming ever more spectacular. Smoketrailing helico to sat, sat to tumble, tumble to rhythmic sat, rhythmic sat to death spiral with wingtip and harness on the lake then land on the rafts bullseye. A person can be an artist, not just with paint but with food, clothing anything, it just depends on how good you are. With these people their art is accro and this weekend they have created a masterpiece.

They Go Down Tiddly Down Down

We awake after a good nights sleep with quizzical expressions late the next morning at 11.30 to the sound of a screaming paramotor (sorry, I’m a big believer in freedom of choice and know they are fellow pilots but I can’t stand those things), a generator and find all and sundry have moved into our bedroom with pagodas, picnics and the like without so much as a bye or leave. About 30 people are loafing close by. They have probably started a book on who out of the three of us will wake up first. I am absolutely roasting in my sleeping bag by this time of day and far too Spanish by now to be concerned by this turn of events, so I stand up and with a huge yawn, stretch, adjust my scrotum and go for a swim in the lake to freshen up.