Flying in St. Auban By: Real Le Goueff Notice: All the informations mentioned in this recount of my trip to St Auban should be regarded as incomplete and subject to change without notice. My trip was done in the low season with the least interesting weather. It is probable that anyone going there in the full blown season would experience very different flying condition. This web site was made with the only intention to share my experience with fellow pilot and to serve as a simple introduction to what could be awaiting them. No procedure or other information on how to fly on the mountains ridges should be interpreted as dead accurate, as my interpretation or understanding of the information I gathered is incomplete & would be different of somebody else interpretation. Some topics are based on personal evaluation and should be considered as such. In any case I tried to convey the information to the best of my knowledge. The only reliable source of information to everything pertaining to flying in St Auban is the CNVV, there mail and web address are: E-mailto:info@cnvv.net Web page: www.cnvv.net   Also have a look at my other Websites: Motor gliders: www.trb.8m.com Discus 2 Turbo: www.d2t.8m.com  DG1000 vs Duo: www.dgvsduo.8m.com Ridge Soaring: www.rdg.8m.com Lake Placid: www.lkp.8m.com Discus CS: www.aerosport.8m.com The Duo Discus T: www.ddtr.8m.com

Information

This is an account of the trip I made to St Auban in southern France in February 2003. I hope that you will find this reading useful and interesting. This web site is specially made for all those thinking of going to the CNVV and who are interested in various informations about St. Auban. I have posted some interesting documents for instance the Railway schedules, web sites addresses, an aerial picture of St. Aubans field, field description, fleet description, Bus schedule, Out landing field book sample, and all sorts of helpful informations, address & photos that may be handy if you are thinking of going there.

Flying in St. Auban (February 2003)

In 2001 I was at a point where I wanted to improve my skills in different gliding environment. I had got myself a Glider, and this machine had expended my desire to do more, and opened up a hole new array of possible flights. Time restriction was now in my past. I was making progress at a speed I had not foreseen, even in my wildest dreams. In less than a year I had learned more that in the past five years. Therefore I wanted to start flying elsewhere.

I had bin joyfully flying for years in the relatively flat land region at the frontier of Ontario and Quebec along the Ottawa river. This had bin a wonderful place. I had bin flying only in thermals and wanted to learn about different ways of flying like; Ridge, Wave and Mountain flying, most of witch not available close to my home field.

In my home club the season last for about 7 month, 5 of witch are reasonable, the rest being marginal for x country. Late in 2001 I started looking at various places to fly during winter time. First I looked at places in western Canada & the Eastern US where a club in Florida was appealing. Whether I brought my glider or not put me up against various problems, most of witch pertaining to transportation, that where not easy to solve.

I then looked further at various clubs in France, one being St Auban. I also looked at other places in the world, like New Zealand, Australia ,South Africa, South America, western, southern & Eastern USA.... Despite all my research I ended up not going anywhere mostly due to lack of information, uncertainty, $ matters, work schedule conflicts and unsolvable transportation problem.

During the summer 2002, I had the chance to speak to a few people that went to St Auban & I also read an interesting articles in the September 2002 issue of the SSA magazine. All had good words about it. In the fall of 2002 I went to Lake Placid USA, where I was introduce to wave flying. I didn t do much since we had few waves, but this totally new type of flying in a drastically new & challenging environment had prompted me to do my homework once more & look again at various way to stretch my season by flying in new place that would also improve my skills. Therefore, with a boosted desire to learn more, I started again in November of 2002 to look were I could fly during the winter or early spring 2003. I visited numerous web page, and came to the conclusion that St Auban was worth the trip. In fact according to my research It appeared that the CNVV (Centre National the Vol a Voile) in St. Auban Had:

-The biggest fleet of top gliders in the world. Nothing would even come close to it.
-They had great facilities & accommodation on the -They where in the Alps.
-Tough far from Canada, It appeared a little easier to get there than any where else I had looked for.
-It was possible to get a French license with my Canadian one witch would enable me to fly solo, if I was to solo.

St. Auban is in southern France about 100km from the Mediterranean coast. It is located right at the begging of the French Alps. The scenery is breath taking particularly when looked at from a gliders point of view.

I e-mailed them a few time to gather more information and I fortunately was able to squeeze a small vacation time at my work place.

The jet lag was worrying me a little because I tough that it could impinge on my flying time. It turned out not to be such a big problem.

Then I started looking for an airplane ticket and ran in all sort of awkward schedule the worst one making me wait 8h in London while changing airport to catch the plane. I finally was able to find a ticket from Montreal to Marseille with a plane change in Paris. from Marseille I would take the train to my finale destination.

I left Montreal on the 11th February 2003, after spending a lot of thinking on what to bring and what not to bring in my luggages. All together it took more than 24h to get to St Auban . Getting there was no fun because I lost a lot of time & energy in transit, specially waiting in Paris for my plane to Marseilles, not to mention the procedures that one has to go through to change plane plus all the waiting in and the zillion times they check your passport, many times befor boarding the plane and just after getting out of it, just to make sure you did not metamorphosed into somebody else while on the plane, who knows! I could have done without all this. Having a direct flight to Marseille would have drastically reduce the pain but I found none. Next time I will look deeper into this.

In Marseilles I took the bus to the train station (45mnt) waited for the train. The ride took about 2h. Once in St. Auban, Late in the afternoon, I was told that the field was just across the road in front of the train station. There was a steep hill to climb, about 75 feet high, witch turned out to be the Eastern edge of the field. This healthy walk was a bit strenuous with my pack sac. Once on top of this I was facing the biggest club field I had ever seen. It was really big, 1.2 km long by 400m wide! Unfortunately I was on the wrong side. So I walked my way around it. Photo Train station

The sky was overcast, I tough that it was too late and no good for flying. At some point on my way to the club administration building I recognize the whispering sound of a glider flying at high speed. I looked around but saw nothing. Then I heard it again and this time looked strait up and saw a glider flying upside down. This acro glider went in many different aerobatic figures, and eventually landed. Has I got to the other side of the field I went to have a closer look. It was a Fox. In it was the French Acro Champion Daniel Serre practicing for the World acro Championship. Strangely enough I found out that he was a friend of a pilot I fly with back at my home club in Canada! Isn t the world small !! A Duo Discus also came down and then a Pegase, and they went up again. After all maybe it was a good day!

I when to do the administration building for the paperwork, and paying the registration fees. At that point it was suggested, among other things, to buy the club made hand book on all the local airport and the 71 landable field in the area. There is also a general map in the first pages of that book to guide you in the location of all the fields. This is a must if there is a x country in sight. I didn t think that I was going to do x-country, but I got it anyway. This book is French & English.

Upon registration you will have to get there insurance plan that is compulsory. You have the choice to buy the part to cover all the possible damage you could do to the gliders with or without a personal protection to pay for Medicare for yourself in case of injuries in a glider accident. The first choice is 115 Euros, and about 170 Euros for the complete package. I got the part for the glider since I already had one for Medicare from Belaire Assurance witch had cosseted me about 45. For your information the address of Belair Ass. is at the end. I can not comment on how good Belair is, I never got used it ....yet!

I also bought a map of the area witch turned out not to be very good because of the faint colors outlining the mountains. It happens that the CNVV has order other maps of the area that are much better. I was lucky that latter, one fellow pilot gave me his old map witch I found very useful. Then I got to my room in the South building left my luggages and headed strait for the hangar to have a look at the gliders. There was a lot of glider in this gigantic hangar. All top shape, all glass ships. I can assure anyone that they are not greedy on the quality of the gliders. Sitting In this hangar alone was an ASW 27, 2 Duo Dicus, Discus 2, LS8, Pegase, V2a, V2c 18m, Nimbus 4 D, ASW 25 and a few more, and there are 3 more hangars plus numerous glider trailer between the hangars. Photo hangar

Thursday the 13th of February First day for me and This morning it was overcast, I guess no flying? the weather is miserable hum...What to think ! Going to the cafeteria for the breakfast, witch is conveniently located in the same building, I looked at the architecture. It is build as if it was the set for a movie made in the futures, awkward angled walls. I got lost in all the corners before being able to find my way. The administration building it a of similar construction. The north building is more conventional. The breakfast is more than plentiful. I was alone in the cafeteria! This time of the year is the least busy. Then I went for the morning briefing, Just prior to going to the meeting I met Jean Marc Caillard, the 2 times world champion and 2 times European champion, he is incidentally going to be my instructor for the second week of my stay. Then I went to the weather beefing where it was confirm that there was no flying today. So in the morning we had a lecture on the Zander 940 computer. They have this type on almost all glider. You can find more information on the Zander web page. (The Zander web page can be access by the DG web page www.dgflugzeugbau.de, under: Links). In my class was 5 other guys, some from Belgium, Great Britain and 2 from Netherlands. I believe there wasn't anybody else training in the club at that point in time. The afternoon was free time.