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Hang Gliding Pre-Worlds 2008 |
If you want to read a serious take on the Hang Gliding Pre-Worlds
2008 then by all means visit the Oz Report by Davis Straub (a.k.a. Sam the
Bald Eagle - the similarities were quite alarming... in looks and
behaviour!)
For more of a piss take on the
Irish Pre-Worlds, read on...
Saturday 21 June (somewhere on a motorway in
central France...) - The Irish assault on the title for World
Champion SkyGod suffered a slight setback last night. Team Langer HQ received a
call from top Irish pilot Daryn Clements
to say that his car's engine had exploded on the motorway while driving
down through France to Laragne. Stranded outside Dijon with his wife,
girlfriend and new baby (I'll let you form
your own mental picture) with over
500 miles to go, frantic arrangements were made throughout the night to rescue
this top pilot and his flying gear and get this important cargo to Laragne on
time for registration in the Pre-Worlds. Meanwhile, wife, baby and girlfriend
were to be left stranded on the side of the motorway in clouds of black smoke to
fend for themselves and use their charms to effect their own rescue. In times of
crisis... needs must. Stay tuned for news of the divorce
proceedings!
Museum of Hang Gliding - Before the Pre-Worlds comp
got under way, the local club rigged up between fifty and a hundred old hang
gliders in the camp LZ going back to the dawn of hang gliding. The
collection is owned by the Laragne HGC and included some truly frightening
looking contraptions. It must have taken real balls and blinding stupidity to
actually fly some of these kites when they first came out! Most impressive was a
full-scale replica model of Leonardo da Vinci's Bird-Man wings. Made of
aluminium, steel, wood, springs and wishful thinking, this contraption had all
the controls of a modern hang glider and could be strapped onto a (strong) man's
back. It remained on display for the duration of the
comp.
Monday 23 June (6.45am, in a tent, Camping Monteglin... with
a painfully full bladder from the night before...)
- Shaun O'Neill arrived in Laragne last night after tearing
himself away from his new business and dream job, setting up a small commercial
brewery in rural France, to join Team Langer in some arduous pre-comp
training and to impart some of his considerable knowledge about flying and
brewing. Shaun stressed the importance of flying with a high wing loading
during competition conditions for best speed glides between thermals, and set
about demonstrating how this could be achieved by the consumption of large
quantities of beer. Armed with considerable stash of his excellent booze
for the Irish team to sample, The Langers set about consuming heroic quantities
of ballast throughout the evening.
The team manager and medical expert also stressed the importance of
avoiding dehydration during the comp and urged The Langers to consume yet more
beer. The old maxim, "if you are in a hot climate and have a headache, nausea
and a spinning head in the morning then you are not drinking enough... (or
you're pregnant!)" seems to prove that he may not have got the message across to
the team last night as they were all looking a little seedy this morning.
Happily, however, their beer-gut ballast seemed to have improved
noticeably.
Shaun, Fran & Geoff at the opening
ceremony
  Team Langer's manager looses his cherry - but not
in the manner you might imagine! With the campsite unusually empty for this time
of year, and for such a large comp, Lanager's manager pitched his tent in the
shade of a beautiful, fully laden cherry tree in full fruit. Waking this morning
to find his tent shaking to the sound of strained female panting, he
thought at first he had got lucky during the night! Alas, on emerging from his
mobile Chateau he found the beautifully lithe, and pleasingly scantily
dressed Russian babe (Julia Kucherenko) climbing his
precious tree, pulling ripe cherries for breakfast! Only his good manners
prevented him from suggesting a little 'voule vouz avec moi,
sesoir...'
 A little later in the day the same scene was repeated... but with an
altogether less attractive subject for the fantasy to work on. Frustrated
pilot, Geoff McMahon, antsy at not having a glider to fly (it was stuck on
Daryn's clapped out car in Dijon) released his energies by imitating a
hairless Oranutan in the self same cherry tree by going for a vertical walk - no
Kleenex needed here, then... or perhaps they were... he seemed to be sniffing
each branch as he climbed!
 Tuesday 24th - Practice Day (7.24pm, on the crapper after
some dodgy cherries) - The weather today continues to improve after the
past weeks of rain and overdevelopment. Today, all the team got into the air in
cloudless skies, so at least some aviation has been committed at last. Many
thanks to Shaun for allowing himself to be "volunteered" for the position of
team leader, which meant having to be up earlier than the rest of us for a
safety briefing every morning in the Comp HQ in town. Shaun was also elected
onto the Pilot's Safety Committee which gave the thumbs up or down on every task
and whether or not to stop a task if conditions became dangerous... which they
did, most days. Well done Shaun. Note to self: Red cherries, Good... Pink
cherries, BAD!
Thursday 26th - Task 1 - "The team that flies together, stays together."
The less said, the better... they
all bombed! After a less than brilliant day's flying for the Irish, Team Langer
held an impromptu morale building (and opposition nobbeling) guitar session in
camp, which attracted a good crowd. Everyone contributed at least one party
piece to the evening. Having kept most of the camp awake until 3.45am, and with
the beer all used up, we eventually crawled back to our beds for a few short
hours of kip before the next day's exertions. Rich Hudson finally made it back
to camp at around midnight after a particularly long and gruelling
retrieve. The Brits, meanwhile, were all tucked up in their beds by 9pm with
lashings of warm cocoa, a good-night kiss from Gordon Rigg and a bed-time story
about how they'd all do swimmingly well the following day... while The Langers
played on into the wee hours. In hindsight, the Brits may have been on to
something, but I don't think The Langers'd swallow a kiss from
Gordon... or Shedsie!
 Friday 27th - Feu de la St. Jean - The Mistral is blowing and
flying is cancelled for the day - party time! A mega bonfire and outdoor
disco behind the tiny church of St. Jean, just outside the campsite, with DJ,
beer, girls and general silliness! The first reported instance of "The Trick"
(which spread through the campsite like wildfire!) was performed here tonight on
the deliciously well endowed Cornellia. Another late night for everyone.
"The Trick" - a bloke goes up to a curvy babe and says "I bet you 50c
I can make your breasts wobble without touching them." Curvy babe, a little
surprised at this new chat-up line replies something like "Yeah, right, this I
got to see." Where upon bloke takes a couple of handfuls of firm breast and
gives them a good wobbly feel-up and says "Damn, looks like I owe you
50c!"
 Tuesday
1st - Bon Soire Ribiers! - The
Pre-Worlds organisers treated everyone to a night of pizza, paella, booze and
music... almost. The booze and grub were great, but the band (a local,
French/Irish bunch called Slainte) were brutal and soon had everyone weeping
into their pints with their wrist-slashingly depressing dirges. Our very own
Fran Denny was persuaded to get up on stage and wrestle a guitar from one of
them and strike up a tune. The effect was electric! One moment the crowd was
contemplating suicide (or at least an early night) and the next, everyone was up
dancing and cheering! Buoyed by this success Fran ventured another few songs to
great acclaim... while the original band members made a discreet exit from the
stage and hid in the shadows of shame! Fran's heroic rescue of the evening even
made the local papers the following day!!
Scary monsters exploding in the
background at Aspre
Daryn & his batten
bunnies
Saturday 28th - Aspre - An unidentified
pilot blows a nil-wind launch and minces in. His glider is
wrecked (leading edge, carbon cross-boom, both uprights, basebar and a couple of
significant tears to the sail) but he escapes unscathed! The consolation prize
is that he gets his glider carried back up the hill by the deliciously sexy
Cornelia! Another pilot did the same thing a few minutes earlier and broke his
arm and mangled his shoulder.
Sunday 29th - Atomic Bombs exploding along the course line
put a halt to the day before it starts. Pilots landing near Aspre after
the task is canned due to erupting CuNims are treated to a display of
"Controlled Flight into Terrain" by one who shall remain nameless... for now! A
properly functioning radio might have saved him a helicopter ride into (the
appropriately named) Gap hospital. Hindsight can be a real kick in the
teeth!
Wednesday 2nd - Task 6 - The Langers pull it off! -
After Task 2 Fran Denny is just 5 points
behind the current World Champion, Attila Bertok! Ok, so Attila forgot to get
out of bed for this task, but hay - In your face, "Champ!"
The day's task was stopped due to monster
thunder storms developing along the course and everyone landed in the
campsite LZ, which got a little intense as the storm approached, let rip on the
Chabre and eventually dumped its load on the LZ. Deafening thunder and visceral
rumblings - awesome! 50-100 gliders landed safely in just 15 minutes!
Those who couldn't get down in time had to run for cover.
Above: Geoff
blasting in to the goal field ahead of the storm. Geoff executed a perfect
landing flare right in front of the goal-line marshals. He then attempted to run
his glider across the field to clear the LZ, tripped and nosed in in front of
the world's top pilots! His voluble effing and blinding was only just drowned
out by the hoots of laughter from around the field!! To be fair, the take-off
and landing techniques of many of the top pilots was woeful to say the least, so
who were they to laugh!
 Stresses & Strains - After finally realising
that the only way he'd beat some of the top pilots here would be in a bar
fight, and against unrelenting pressure from the comp organisers and his team
mates, Fran eventually caves in to constant nagging from d'missus
to join her in Perpignan (near the Spanish border) to take her
shopping. Standing on the platform in Aix en Provence with train ticket in hand,
he receives yet another call from the ball and chain and gets such an ear-full
that he cashes in his ticket and drives back to Laragne for the final day of the
comp and another party! God bless you Fran for your dedication to the team - you
finally got your priorities right! I hope it didn't cost too much when Deirdre
finally got her hands on you!!
 Friday
4th - Task 7 - With morale taking a bit of a nosedive after
comprehensively failing to make it into the top 5 places, the team starts
searching around for alternative means of "getting high and staying high."
Fran's music can only take us so far, but mushrooms offer an interesting
possibility... Hay, at least the Langers have been consistent - and fair dibbs,
they made it out of the 100's and into the 90's in the comp rankings. Kudos,
dudes!
Well done to all the Langers! I think we all learned
something from this comp and will be better prepared for the main event in
2009!
Good luck to The Langer's
B-Team
Ken - Jim - Enda &
Craig
who have just headed out to
Laragne to compete
in the
Belgian Open - 19th - 26th
July.
Ribbit!
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