Lanzarote 1999
Resurrected from old webserver
Lanzarote flying, 15-22 feb 1999.
Snow, ice, and sub-zero temperatures for 6 months a year is pretty good motivation for loading glider and harness in a 757 destined for the Canary islands in February. A group of local pilots have been going to Lanzarote for almost ten years now, and have returned with tales of great flying, so we (Erik, Lars, Kristian and I) decided to take a week off to go flying.
Erik and I rented gliders from a local German pilot, who lives on Lanzarote most of the year. We got a LaMouette Hermes for Erik, and a Moyes Xtralite 137 for me since I was the lightest pilot. It’s always high winds, so a small gliders is an advantage. Next time I’ll rent apartements and glider as a whole package.
We rented two Opel Corsa’s with roof-rack to use as HG transport, not the biggest cars, and they all seem to come in green, but they got the job done. We did spot one of these 1.1 litre engine cars, with 4 big german pilots inside, 4 hanggliders on the roof, and 3 paragliders on top of the hanggliders..
A good advice – Never ever mention the word hangglider when you try to get a car. The rental firms seems to have bad expirience with HG pilots.
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The first two days were blown out, so we got drunk, and goofed off on the beach and in town.
The third day we went to Mala, but Lars and Erik thought it was too windy, so we went to Famara instead, only to find more wind. We flew anyway, after getting acclimated to the wind by standing on the ridge for three hours… Had a nice 1 hour flight, while Erik landed almost at one (He blamed it on the glider but we all know why :-))
Erik taking off at Mala, with my rented Xtralite. He did not like the LaMouette Hermes, the Xtralite had much better handling. Mala is great for photosessions like this with laminar vinds and easy take off and landing.
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The rest of the week we flew from Mala, in good conditions. Mala is a great site, lots of space to rig the glider, nice takeoff, and huge top-landing. I never went XC, but Erik Bergseter from the other team of Norwegians flew across the island to Famara one day
Usually we arrived at 10, rigged and soared for a hour, top landed, had some food and water/soda/beer, and took off again to fly as the thermals picked up. This is me toplanding late in the afternoon, notice the huge landing area. The take-off is 10 meters to the right.
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We got 10-15 hours in the air in 5 days, we could easy have flown for 25 if we wanted too. This is Kristian, flying the “simulator” by the pool. Doesn’t look too turbulent, does it?
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