Sportflight

A bit late, and very long - every person involved in the comp was given a tankard - and the closing ceremony is over.

The atmosphere was very informal, no march past or such, but it was good fun.

The British team with team bronze, and the PF1 class was so close that we were only a handful of points off more medals - a great performance.

The (potential) world record holders were celebrated and given a clock - Dave Hairs is a record-holder in waiting following his 110km flight in the distance task.

At times the ceremony was very emotional. Carlos’ brother attended and he stood on the podium along with the Spanish team as they collected a silver in PL1, Carlos’ class. We held a minute’s silence and watched a montage of Carlos in action at the championships. This competition may well be remembered for the tragic accident, at the same time good memories of an excellent sporting event will be treasured. During one speech Carlos was mentioned and his name added to the list of aviators who have died while experiencing flight.

As the inscription next to Carlos’ picture says, the best way to honour a life is to live a life. We turn our eyes to Beijing in 2007 (I have my invite already) and to another great competition. See you there…

We’re waiting for the closing ceremony to start… already 45 mins late and no sign of starting yet :O)

We’ve been swapping photos. These are Etsushi Matsuo’s pics (he’s my fellow steward, and organiser of the comp next year in Beijing).

Red Bull sponsored Ramon.

Last night’s sunset.

Maybe next year…

The competition was officially declared over at about 6.30pm last night so it was hair-letting-down time. I was invited to dine with the Brit team (thank you!) and can now officially state that they have been eating like kings all week. Oey (wife of deputy team leader Andy) is originally from Thailand and deserves a Michelin star. Andy tells me she’s available for other competitions, you’d be lucky to have her.

Last night videos were played on a big screen, the one I particularly liked was called ‘Fatima’s Hand’ and was about a base jump from a 600m rock in Africa - with Spanish pilot Ramon Morillas acting as support crew (with a paramotor on his back). It felt like end of term, another international competition has come and gone, friendships created or renewed and a good time had by competitors, supporters and organisers.

The final scores are out - Team GB have won bronze in the PF category, Dave Hairs is in line to have a world record for longest distance - 110km on 1.5kg of fuel! - and he also ended up 4th in PF1 class. I gather he messed up the slow/fast task, if he hadn’t then he certainly would have got a medal, maybe even come first. Who knows?

The paella dish has been cleaned (phew!) and the closing ceremony is at 1300. Time to fill in reports and other such stuff.

An airfield with no flying is just a field full of pilots.

We’re having paella for lunch tomorrow after the closing ceremony - all of us!

Lots of cards being played today…

Or high-adrenalin board games! David Sigier flying in the Open class (he’s from Quebec).

On top of a hut near the hangar - the prop starts to spin at 18km/h and it is whirring round today.

It’s all a bit much for Brit pilot Mike Chilvers!

Leon cathedral - the old town is really worth a visit.

The wind blows the flags at half mast. The (music) band has been cancelled for tomorrow night, the press cuttings have been put on the walls and Carlos is in everyone’s thoughts.

Ho hum, not much going on here. Even as I woke up the wind was blowing a good 20km/h and it’s probably got a bit stronger since then. Certainly the windsocks are horizontal, and there seems to be little chance of it abating in time for any tasks tonight. The assistant competition director was talking about having a task tomorrow morning, but the mechanisms of the competition make this very hard. A task may finish around 10am, then it needs to be scored, then time for complaints, then an official score, then time for protests and any further time to deal with the protests. In practical terms, the comp ends tonight.

So we have been sitting around catching up on work, reports and other stuff, but what was really useful was a meeting of about 25 pilots (along with stewards and jury) to talk about future expectations for paramotor competitions. This is such a new sport (Leon is only the fourth Euro paramotor competition) that we are still finding our feet. Many of the tasks have been taken from classic classes, since there was no other template, and now that the sport is growing, some of the tasks need refining. There is a proper system for effecting change, and hopefully the (almost 2 hour) meeting will focus competitors’ minds towards getting involved in organisational matters.

Otherwise, not much going on, we decided not to fly yesterday, we are not able to fly today, so we have the closing ceremony to look forward to tomorrow. I’ll get my camera out and go for a walk.

A difficult day. The mood around the airfield has been quiet, time was taken up with official business and also digesting the events of the previous day. The Spanish team gathered for a talk last night, then the team leaders, and all agreed to suspend the competition for a day, and then to carry on with the last tasks on Friday. I think we all felt that this was the best way to go ahead, and that the dead pilot would not want us to stop flying. He was named and the organisation released an official statement. Some felt the need to get away for a short while today, I went into the nearest big town of Leon for a walk around. Late in the afternoon we got a call to say that the funeral was to take place in a town two hours drive away, so it was a rush to get there in time.

Over 250 turned up, and even though I did not know any of the people involved, I still found it a very difficult time. There was a lot of emotion on display and many competitors made the trip out of respect for a fellow pilot. It was the first time I had attended the funeral of a fellow recreational aviator, and it was not a pleasant experience. The campsite held a moving ceremony last night after the meetings, a bright sodium flare was burned and the official flags were lowered to half-mast. It was a terrible accident.

The competition will continue tomorrow with a slalom, then navigation, then precision landing, which (I think) will mark the end of the comp. It’s been a long and emotional day, it’s time for bed.

The competition has been suspended following a terrible accident. One of the Spanish pilots completed the task today, then refuelled, and on his way back to the airfield was seen by a witness to have a wing collapse and he fell to the ground. He died, it seems immediately, since the witness reported that he was not breathing very shortly afterwards.

The mood here is very sombre indeed. We are waiting for the teams to return before a meeting of team leaders to decide what to do from here.

All of our thoughts are with the family of the pilot, the Spanish team and everyone connected with this sport.

Hungry for more photos?

Try the official website - Miguel needs 40 mins from taking a whole bunch of them to them being live on the website!

The last couple of PF1 pilots have just got off for task 10, which is the old task 9. You get a limited amount of fuel, then have to fly away as far as possible. Dave and Michel were among the first to get away, making the most of the very thermic conditions. It’s blowing a steady 5-8kt but is very lumpy - we’re watching the poor pilots being chucked about the sky as they try to find good lift.

Andy (deputy team leader) is holding up a ribbon to show the wind direction. He confidently predicted that Michel would be among the best, and he’ll get 80km away. There’s no restriction on mobile phones for this task - people need them so they can arrange a lift home! (Mobile phones are usually sealed in an envelope to stop in-flight communications).
The increased wind leads to a slight change of take-off style - pilots pull the wing up while facing it, then turn 180 degrees before starting the take-off dance. Andy Griffin (**Who?? I meant Andy Phillips!**) quite happily admitted he doesn’t like these endurance/thermalling tasks. He said that in the same breath as telling me he did a mini-triathlon just for fun while on holiday. Andy has an active background, he’s not the shy and retiring type!

We (jury and stewards) took a quick trip to the nearest village to check on the accuracy of a timing gate based on a church - Michel narrowly missed one and quite rightly asked to check its accuracy on the scoring system. We drove to the church in question and took a GPS fix. When I got back to the airfield I asked Jose-Luis to verify that the gate was in the right place (it is). I have to admit here that it took us a little longer to get back than expected… Keith spotted a nice little tapas place so we had a quick bite to eat. The food over here is usually really good, it’s simple fare but tasty. We had patatas bravas (fried potatoes in chilli), then patatas al loio (or something - it means ‘in garlic’) as one of the dishes, so are warding off competitors with our breath right now. I bet they’re glad they’re getting as far away from us as possible! I said the food is usually good… the cafeteria on site served (pigs) tripe one day. I did try it, but I think the picture Keith took says more than any description I might offer.

The task 9 has been changed to a turnpoint hunt with speed accuracy, since the wind was not favourable for world records today… maybe tomorrow. Pilots are busy trying to decide how many turnpoints they can fly to in 90 minutes…

Now 6pm and the take-off window is open so I have to go check everything is OK. The telly people were here earlier, but J-L was telling me he’s used to talking in front of a lot of people (he’s a university lecturer part time) so it was no bother. He has to sign every score sheet when it’s published, I reckon his autograph will be worth money after all this TV work - I’d better go steal a few score sheets quick!