Kalkan flight - 19th September

Free ride up the 1000m ridge overlooking Kalkan at 1pm with local tandem pilot Halil and another solo pilot from Istanbul (Bulent?). I took the flight path illustrated in the photo. There was an excellent 4-5 up thermal where indicated - which I climbed in for a few hundred meters, but had to bail out since it was drifting inland. There were cu nimbs inland on this day and the rumble of thunder. On a fine day, this may have been the beginning of a good xc flight - to Kas perhaps. There's good soaring on the lower ridges above Kalkan. It's a tight landing on the little road next to the harbour which you have to be accurate with.

Another crossing to Saklikent - this time with local XC man Ali Atarod

I made a good decision today, based on Meteoblue's soundings for Fethiye. I saw that there would be a sharp inversion today after 12pm, but at around 10am there was a good ALR for thermalling. So I was up at 7am - very unusual - and was up at the top of Babadag by 10am or so, going up with Focus. Conditions were looking good. I met Ali Atarod from Iran on the way up - the guy John suggested I meet up with. He lives for flying, and knows this area's XC potential like nobody else. He's been living here for 5 years, and now flies with a Niviuk Artik 2.

My first attempt of a take-off landed me over the edge of the watch tower takeoff zone - down that sharp cliff! Wham - dreadful sink - and I was down. Luckily I stayed perched on the edge like a mountain goat, and was helped up by the guy who was videoing my takeoff (!) and Ali. Then we moved down to the safer takeoff, and - with no other paragliders in sight - took off into a thermal that took us both up like a big escalator to around 3000m - very smooth. I got a few patches of 5-6 ups but mostly 2 ups I think. It was good flying with someone else for once. Ali seemed to want to fly off towards Saklikent with some urgency at one point. I think he shouted 'when you've got a bit more height, go!' or something like that. He was off. I hung around and topped up a bit. The drift was towards Olu Deniz beach, so I decided to pushed off towards Saklikent at around 3020m (I think I could of gained quite a bit more hight) quite far behind Ali. I turned a few times in another thermal towards the end of the Babadag ridge, taking me back up to 3000m. By the time I'd reached Ali in the valley, however, I'd sank a fair bit, and as we glided across the difference seemed to increase. My glide is fast but not good with the glide ratio I've noticed. I just about made it to Saklikent. I had to walk 500m - with some lads who helped me pack my wing - to get to Saklikent where I met up with Ali. So that's two XCs in 3 flights this summer. That's a good ratio. Next stop - Babadag to Kalkan. Ali wants to go to Kas!

4th August: XC from Babadag to Saklikent

Climbed to 3230m from the top takeoff of Babadag. Mostly 2-ups, although my vario registered a 7.5m/sec average over 15 sec. I believe there may have been an inversion around 2,700m which I broke through. Head towards the clearing in the conifers, and got the 4m/sec plus sink that I got the last time I headed in that direction. Found a weak thermal close to Esen (?) where I gained another 300m before changing tack and heading to Saklikent. No thermals across the valley - must have been killed by the sea breeze. Interestingly, I thought I was on a more northerly heading. Nice having a coke and a couple of beers in the tree house cafe when I landed!

Total distance (direct) - 21km.

9th May : Racon tepe, Ankara

Özgün e-mailed on Friday "NW winds, above 2500 meters cloudbase. Coming to fly?". Turned into a great day - maybe my last at Racon. Yigit, Umut, and Basat were there, and the Hacattepe university club. Beautiful Ankara spring weather - cold, thermic air and a breeze. By early afternoon the thermals had organised themselves after being totally disorganized in the late morning and I got away with Özgün and Basat. It was turbulent higher up. I saw 4-5 collapses. I thought we were in an inversion. I didn't get a collapse for once. I landed about 20km away near Özgün. After getting back to Racon, we enjoyed some relaxing evening soaring.

April 25th - 26th: Ölü Deniz

First flying of the season - with Özgun and some Bilkent students (Cantekin, etc). METU pilots down there too, and Malissa (Yigit's sister), Umut (with new Mantra R), Samit (?)... Quite a crowd. On the Friday Mahoney and his passenger (cute girl) SATed into Emirhan (Bilkent student on first big flight), causing a mid-air catastrophy. Emirhan threw his reserve, and they were all going down together. Closer to the sea, Mahoney and passenger disengaged and flew to the beach. Emirhan was in the water, tangled in his lines, for 15 minutes before a boat came out to rescue him. Then two days of bad feeling and acrimony between Mahoney and the Bilkent pilots. Emirhan's (club) 1,500 Euro glider was beyond repair - huge split down the middle of the upper surface and tears all over. Who was going to pay for it?

The collision as it happened

Mahoney was certainly at fault here. With a start like this, will he last through the summer?

I had a good couple of flights on Sunday. In the morning I flew to Butterfly Valley, landing in the hope there would be a boat out. There was - and it was magic. I made a wish and threw a coin in 'lovers' cave' on the way. Transport up the mountain, without the Forestry fee (too early in the season) was 5 YTL. The boat back to Ölü was 10 YTL. Not bad for a trip to Butterfly Valley and back. In the afternoon (setting off in the truck at 3pm with Melissa and Tunci) I thermalled with Jocky Sanderson's group. First I was pinned down a bit on the lower ridge, and decided to cross over to the cliff between the 1700m take off and the top. I managed to get a thermal and soar over the top and then kept up high - 200m or more above the summit. I was flying like this for about an hour, before flying off to the mountain across Ölü, where there was no activity. Relative to another pilot on a performance wing who was on the same flight path across I noticed that my speed was good but sink rate bad - relatively. I tried some deep wing-overs, which rapidly became very energetic, ending in a big collapse. I've got to work on these with this glider. It builds up energy and speed very rapidly and I don't have full control over it.

24th August. Flew from the higher takeoff by the power station (?) above Kalkan. The wind was coming from the west, along the ridge, so it was into wind the whole way - no dynamic lift (or thermic lift). Nice seeing Kalkan (and the plateaus to the east) from the air - much, much smaller than Kas - the core of the town.

22nd August, Babadag

This was my second flight from Babadag this holiday. The first flight on the 19th was uneventful. I had hopes of flying cross country to dad's across the valley, but the conditions were totally unsuited. I was there on the 1700m take-off at 11.30am, all kitted up with fleece and flying suit, sweating. I waited and waited (annoying the tandem pilots), and when I finally took off, I just sank and sank and sank. I glided across Olu Deniz, revisiting the newly bulldozed take-off that I'd flown from with John Young a couple of months back. Absolutely nothing.

Today's flight was much better. Once again - although there were a couple of guys thermalling several hundred meters above the hill on the truck drive up (I was lying on the truck roof:) - once I was in the air it was all shutting down. I'm pretty sure that in these humid conditions, the best time to thermal at Babadag is in the late morning - say between 10-12am. After this time the sea breeze kills everything. Certainly seemed that way. I did thermal up 300m or so to over 2000m, straight from take-off, but at this height you got pinned down. The wind was quite strong, and the thermals were disorganized at all heights. There were frequent blasts of turbulence. At around 200m ATO, I had - and this was new - a cascade of collapses. First an asymmetric - wing somewhere far behind me. I expected it to surge forward and recover, but it didn't. It crossed my mind that I'd stalled the wing now. Then a surge, this time with the left tip cravatted! I was trying to pump it out and damp the dive at the same time. It all seemed like it was happening in slow motion. I was facing the ridge, above the 1700m take-off. I thought 'this is a cravat and it could be serious' as I gauged my distance fro the ridge. Then it released and I got a massive surge which I damped and then swung under, perhaps with 50-70m clearance.

So height is important in these conditions on my new wing. I spent the next 20 minutes or so continuing with my wrestling the air along the ridge between the 1700m take off and the top, not wanting to give up. Good practice, but also fairly dangerous on a 2-3. It wasn't working - no one was climbing (3 other bold tandem wings) - and I then headed over the sea with 1000m to play with. I practiced wing-overs, and spiral dives. Much more rapid build up of energy on this smaller and faster wing. I did a set of wing-overs where I really built the energy up pretty well, but ended up stalling it (right asymmetric). On another set I didn't build up the energy properly and they were crap. Spiral dives are much easier to do on this wing than the large Gangster. I didn't get the locked in totally flat leading edge, but I got close. I could feel my calf swelling as usual, and my insides being pulled by the g-force. When I landed I felt great. This flight was a real confidence building. Looking forward to practicing more wing-overs over Kas and next week at Olu Deniz.

20th August, Kas.

Annie had her first flight since last summer, over a year ago - before she was pregnant. She loved it, and good for her!

16-17th August. Cokelez, Denizli

A 30km and 25km flight from Cokelez, Denizli, the first in the company of Yurdaer Etike and some others - all of us landing in the same field. I thought this was an amazing coincidence, but the others - who I hadn't been flying with - had flown in formation. What an amazing cross country venue! (See pic below). On the 16th there was a strong inversion at around 3000m. I watched a glider right in front of me over 'big Cokelez' have a massive frontal followed by what looked for a moment like the guy falling out of the sky. A little later I had a violent asymmetric, dive and surge - a new experience on this Swing Cirrus 3 glider - which got my heart racing and put me in super alert 'defensive mode'. And then later on in the flight I had another big asymmetric, but I was getting used to it by now:) I was in 8up thermals at times. Overall it was a very satisfying experience, but it was challenging. The next day was smoother. I climbed to 3,500m to cloud base and then actually big-eared to lose some altitude. I shouldn't have done this, because I didn't make it to the next thermal on glide (!), but I did feel suddenly exposed up there at that height, vario screaming, watching a lone glider ahead of me climbing up the side of the cloud, with the wild scenery stretched out below me, looking unreal like a huge map.

What did I learn on those days? Patience is everything. Over flatlands particularly, make use of every zero and 0.5 up that you find. Work, work, work the lift. Being an impatient sort, I bombed out earlier on both days because of this - flying through lift expecting better further ahead. And I have to get used to flying in and around clouds at huge altitudes (above 3,500m).

A good time socially over the weekend, chatting, having a laugh, etc, with some of the more dedicated xc pilots in Turkey. I need to learn to play Backgammon without having to count. Interesting talking to Ahmet (retired) on the last night at the Artemis Yoruk hotel, about Turkish politics, the army, etc. He says beatings in the Army are routine - they are actually built into the program! And recruits often die it's so brutal. Ahmet doubted that 'terrorist of the sky' Mahonie had been a Kurdish terrorist. Not beyond the odd porky I know, but surely that dent in his skull was made by a Turkish soldier's bullet?