RAF Marham Gliding Expedition to the Southern Alps
RAF Marham Gliding Expedition to the Southern Alps
Gliding anywhere is both fun and exhilarating. Gliding here at RAF Marham certainly is. However, there are other places to glide; and so it is that the RAF Gliding and Soaring Association (RAFGSA) arrange an Expedition every year to the Southern French Alps to an airfield called Sisteron in the Durance Valley. This is not just for somewhere else to go; the reason is the Alps themselves.
This year, both Sgt Graham French and C/T Paul McLean from Marham made the trip along with 12 other glider pilots from around the RAF, ranging from a JT to an Air Marshall. 3 of these were new to the area; one that glides in Cyprus and the other two brand new to gliding. With so many hills turning into mountains, and so many of these mountains arranging themselves into valleys that the weather systems all around this area gives glider pilots a whole new discipline in which to exercise and hone their skills. Flying in the mountains is certainly advanced stuff, and a newly qualified glider pilot shouldn’t even contemplate flying in this area without at first gaining flying experience and then a dedicated course in the area itself and so it was that the ab-initios were introduced to the mountains. It is the advanced nature of this flying that tests all aspects of the pilots’ abilities. Both the handling skills and decision making of the pilots are tested due to the intensity of the flying conditions and the area in which they’re flying.
Now tighten your seatbelts, I am going to take you for a trip along “Le Parcours des Combattants” (in English ‘a commando course’), a continuous ridge of mountains 60km long running roughly north-south in the middle of the area. The Parcours was so named by a local gliding instructor and the name has stuck. It implies that the route is forbidding at first attempt, but it becomes easier with practice. The start is the Montagne de Coupe (1451m rising to 1703m). Here, if you are at the level of the top of the mountain, you pass out of sight of, but trust me, you are in fact safely in range of landable fields. The prospect is awe-inspiring and for the first time it can be frightening. It may appear though that you are very low over the mountains of the moon and this impression continues for the rest of the trip. The Montagne de Coupe is in a privileged spot in the Alps. It heats up very fast, it is well oriented for the south-westerly gradient winds and the valley winds coming from the Durance. If the coupe doesn’t work anywhere along its entire length of seven km, it’s time to pack up and go home-because very few of the other mountains will work either.
Next in line is the magnificent Cheval Blanc (2323m) which is dazzling white even in summer without its mantle of snow. After here there follows a long line of ridges climbing gradually to Les Trois Eveches (2819m) and Tete de l’Estrop (2961m) which are sometimes in cloud. If you are below the ridge at this point flying close to the vertical walls, you will find the rock formations fantastically distorted by the upheaval of the earth’s crust which produced the Alps. You are at the source of the Bleone and therefore, at the receiving end of all the warm air surging upwards along the length of its valley. From here the long ridge of Montagne de Blanche leads you naturally and calmly to the northern end of the Parcours- the Dormillouse(2505m). Calmly because the country opens out into a broad valley and in the distance the beautiful lake Serre Poncon.
Further to the north are the high mountains of the Pelvoux (4000m+) which is another story. So from the start of our journey we’ve climbed from 1451m up to 2891m and down again to 2505m. All, if conditions are right, without turning, and let me remind you, without an engine.
If you’re interested in learning to glide or possibly joining next year’s Exped to Sisteron, please don’t hesitate to call either Sgt Graham French, Ext 4927, or CT Paul McLean, Ext 6628.