Tisseau Vianney <<email>> writes:

Only five rigid pilots came to the French championship in St André last week (including Gil Souviron, Pascal Lanser, Jacques Bott and myself). When we saw the weather conditions were turning good for a big flight on July 10th, we convinced the organisation committee to let us set up a big task. We decided on a 273 km triangle across the fabulous "Les Ecrins" and more famous locals mountains ranges.

I shot a bunch of photos while flying and did another slide show online :

The link to the slide show with captions in French

The links to two scenic shots of Les Ecrins shot from 3500 m while thermaling (bigger size):

http://vianneyphoto3.free.fr/IMG_1869pano.jpg

http://vianneyphoto3.free.fr/Ecrins Meije.jpg

My tracklog in IGC http://vianneyphoto3.free.fr/Juillet%2010%20Vian.igc.zip

My tracklog in KMZ for Google Earth http://vianneyphoto3.free.fr/Juillet10Vian.kmz.zip.

Gil Souviron <<email>> writes:

On the 10th of July we successfully completed a triangle of 273km, the official task for the rigid competition of the French Open in St Andre. The task was ambitious and may be is the biggest task in close circuit ever done in competition.

The start was terrible as it was very stable. We flew over four different mountains in the Alps: Alos, Mercantour, Barcelonette and finally we glided right in the middle of the "Ecrins" 4000 meters mountains.

This flight was for me a bridge between cross country and competion.