http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12572

Shalom Amir <<email>> writes:

I've attended a few competitions at Saint-André-les-Alpes, and it is a wonderful place. The place is great when the weather works, but when it doesn't there is a big problem.

On the last day of the French Nationals I made one of the most difficult decisions in my competition hang gliding  life. There were two forecasts: one good, and the other worse than the first day that we flew (after three days of unflyable winds). We went up Chalve and found west wind on take off and a low, 2,000-2,100m, cloud base. The organisers wanted to give the day a chance.

It looked bad and too risky. Looking around I saw Jean-François Palmarini derigging, some other French pilots did not even rig their gliders. Carl Wallbank, Luis Rizo (the leading pilots of the meet) and Lars-Bo (who later won) seemed very unhappy about the idea of flying. I think that Mario Alonsi was not happy as well, but as the leading French pilot in the competition (he ended up in that position) he could not suggest cancelling the task.

The conditions felt wrong to me. Really wrong. I took a deep breath and made my decision. I was not going to fly. As I started derigging, Mario took his glider, clipped in, and went to take off. But, before he took-off the safety committee cancelled the task.

Few pilots took off to fly down to the LZ, not even Mario.

Now I am not saying that St.-Andres is not a place for competitions. As I said, I've had great competition flights there, given the right weather. The problem is that if the weather is not good enough, and the meet organisers do not cancel, and the safety committee does not cancel the task and pilots take off, well, then the place is no fun.

So it is not the place. It is a combination of the site, weather, competition, meet organizers, safety committee and pilots that fail. In the end the final decision is the pilot's, and many times pilots don't have the experience or ability to properly assess the situation there.

So maybe risky places like Saint-André-les-Alpes  should be avoided, so as not to provide the temptation.