Trip to Jaca

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This page is an account of a trip I did to Santa Cilia Aerodrome near Jaca in the Spanish Pyrenees from 24th February to 2nd March 2006.It was part of a trip organised by the Midland Gliding Club. 12 club members went over a 3 week period, along with the Duo Discus Sydicate based at the Mynd. We hired the club DG505 and rented a house to stay in and shared the cost of the ferry and trailer to get the glider to the airfield.

Day 1 Friday 24/2/06.

Woke up to a clear blue sky, after breakfast had a quick look the village of Santa Cilia, which was incredibly neat and clean with very narrow streets, and then took a 20 minute stroll up to the airfield. The air was very cold, although there was no wind. The airfield is at 2,400 feet asl on the flat bottom of a huge valley with the Pyrennes rising to 10,000 feet on one side of the valley, and the two huge peakes of Sierra de San Juan de la Pena, which is a Vulture Sanctuary,behind the airfield and Pena Oroel behind the town of Jaca about 10 km to the east.

We were introduced to Juan, the CFI, who was young, charming, good looking and spoke good English. He gave us a comprehensive briefing on the field operation and a brief Spanish lesson on how to call 5 minutes and downwind. The airfield has a tarmac runway that looked long enough to land a small passeger jet, plus a grass runway, which turned out to be made of a kind of brown mud that stuck to your shoes, and a gravel runway, which was a fairly effective gel coat stripping device.We were briefed to avoid the vulture sanctuary, and how to gain height on each of the ridges between the airfield and the big mountains before pushing on to the next ridge.

All this makes the airfield easy and safe for local flying as there are lots of huge flat fields, and the airfield is very easy to locate, and the runways are huge so local flying in spectacular scenery is fairly easy.

We got all the kit out of the hangar, the aircraft had been rigged the previous day, and got everything over to the launch point. Up until then there had been no wind, but a westerly breeze got up which strengthened through the day. We soon discovered that this was the normal pattern in the valley once convection started in the mountains, though the upper winds were often in an entirely different direction. John and Simon went off for a familiarisation flight.

Around mid morning the White Storks that are migrating north across the Pyrenees started coming over in huge waves, stopping occasionally to thermal. You can hear them clearly honking to each other as they flew overhead in huge straggling V shapes. We noticed that they came over every morning when the weather was flyable around noon.

At around 1pm I took a launch in the DG505 with BGA chief coach Simon Adlard. We got into good thermals and reached the stage 1 ridge with ease, with fantastic views back over the airfield and Pena Oroel and of the snow capped mountains. We then pushed on towards the mountains and reached stage 2 at 8,000 asl. and pushed on to the main ridge. The scenery was absolutely breathtaking, but although we were at 8,000 feet asl the trees on the slope below looked about circuit height.

We eventually decided it was time to leave, partly to give someone else a flight, and partly out of fear, as the mountains looked like they were getting a bit close. We flew over to Pena Oroel, but found no significant lift, so did a high speed fly past of some walkers near the summit, and final glided back to the airfield. The flight had lasted one hour 15 minutes.

We ate at the airfield that evening, which was very good food, good service and well priced.

Day 2 Saturday 25th February 2006

Turned up for 10 am briefing, the weather was not looking good, and would deteriorate through the day. We were introduced to Anna the tug pilot, who was young, charming, arrestingly pretty and spoke good English. (Where did they find these people). We had worked out that the Spanish club had a Pegasse and a Duo Discus that were available for hire, so decided that the best use of the day was to take a check flight with Juan so we could fly the Pegasse when the weather got better.

The wind was from the East. At the eastern end of the runway was a huge gully with a barely landable field on the other side. The advice in case of a low launch failure was to turn left and land at the bottom of the gully. (This is obviously why they had no weak links on the tow rope) so we went for a 20 minute tow and glide down before the weather set in and it became unflyable.

As there was no flying we all went to find the supermarket, bought lots of food and Liz cooked a fabulous meal for everyone.

Day 3 Sunday 26th February 06

Attended brifing at 10 am, but the forecast is bad, though a good possibility of good Mountain Wave tomorrow. Dossed around in the house all day and then went out for Pizza in Jaca in the evening.

Day 4 Monday 27th February 06.

Woke up to clear bue skies, the wet weather had blown through. At briefing the forecast was looking good for northerly wave, so launched with John Stuart in the Spanish Duo Discus.

The tow was reasonably turbulent, but we did not hit any steady lift, so stayed on tow to about 6,000 feet asl, and pulled of in lift. The lift quickly disappeared, so we pushed forward into wind through rotor expecting to find the smooth wave upwind, but we only found sink. We turned back and eventually found a patch of reliable but not very smooth lift about where we had pulled off over a snow covered hill.

We climbed to about 9,000 feet asl and then decided to head West as there were some decent looking wave clouds and we thought we were going upwind. As we headed along the ridge we encountered heavy sink, and when we got to the promising looking clouds there was no lift, but lots of sink. There was a ridge below us, but that didn't seem to be producing any lift either, and we slowly sank towards it till it started looking rather close. (This is the point we realised that the wind had gone north east, so we were downwind of the site) As we were now 4,500 feet above the field we decided it was prudent to attempt a final glide back to the field, and turned towards the valley, expecting heavy sink in the lee of the ridge. In fact we found lift, at which we were much relieved. The lift was smooth, but very narrow. As we climbed we could see that at the point we were soaring there was a gap in the ridge we had been trying to soar. It seemed like the ridge and wave lift were interfering with each other, so only at this point where there was no ridge lift was the wave able to establish itself. We eventually got up to 10,000 feet, where we could look down on the big mountains again, which felt a lot more comfortable. We went back along the ridge to our original climb, and found good lift to 12,000 feet, but again only a narrow elipse of lift. We pushed forward over the main ridge across the border into France. We had a spectacular view of Pic du Midi D'ossau and found lift on the face of Pico de Aspe. The view into France was also stunning. On the way back the Duo Discus passed over us very high, they had got to 19,500 feet.

Eventually after two and a half hours of the most spectacular flying I have ever done we headed back to the airfield with full bladders and freezing cold feet.

We were again well fed by the airfield caterers, altogether a fabulous day.

Day 5 Tuesday 28th February 2006

The day dawned bright and clear, but the briefing indicated that there would be no lift. The Vultures were out in force, however. Mark and I took the opportunity to take the Pegasse single seater for a flight, I towed to 2,500 feet and found a little lift, but only managed 30 minutes. We discovered two things about the Pegasse, that the right wing was much heavier than the left, which made for an interesting ground run with full left aileron, and that the spring on the undercarriage was so powerful that when I unlocked the lever it raised itself, but took two hands to put it back down again.

As there wasn't any point trying to glide with no lift, but it was a perfectly clear and cloudless day I arranged to go for a flight in the Robin with Juan. We climbed to 11,500 feet and flew along the main ridge of mountains. The view of the mountains was absolutely spectacular, Juan was able to point out the emergency land out fields. We flew along the 'motorway' , over huge valleys, and past the spectacular Tobacor. Eventually we turned back, past other amazing rock formations, and back over the town of Jaca with its distinctive star shaped fort before heading back to the airfield.

It was certainly a spectacular flight, and it was very civilised having a heater.

Wednesday 1st March 2006

At the briefing Juan seemed to think it would not be a very good day, but there would be some thermal activity. In the event we had 7 knot averages to 8,000 feet asl.

I took a tow in the Pegasse to about 2,500 feet, struggled initially to get away, but eventually got a good climb to around 5,000 above site and set off towards the lake, as I could see the Duo Discus 494 turning in something. I shared a few thermals with the Duo before setting off down the lake, the lift was very strong and reliable, there were some north westerly cloud streets, so I followed them for some distance towards the mountains before cutting back to the lake that lies to the west of Santa Cilia. After about an hour I was about 35km from the airfied, and started to work my way back towards Santa Cilia. I hit a strong thermal and turned tightly, looking down the wing I saw hundreds of White Storks circling in the same thermal a thousand feet below, their wings shining in the sun. Aware that they usually came across in great waves, I kept a good lookout for them, and for a while the sky was full of great columns of birds circling, and V shaped flocks crossing well below. I kept well out of their way, as they are big birds and I suspect that a collision with one would be rather fatal.

Eventually all the storks disappeared and I flew over to Jaca and towards the mountains, eventually reaching 8,400 feet asl. I heard Mark on the radio calling 5 minutes in the Duo and knew that he wanted to fly the Pegasse so headed back to the airfield and landed after a flight of 2 hours 5 minutes.

After a quick lunch I leapt into the DG505 with John Stuart, and took another launch. We tried to climb up into the mountains, but the lift had become very weak and we started sinking towards the hilltops. Eventually we found a small area of lift in a bowl and worked it up to a good height. We went over to the Vulture sanctuary and then joined Mark thermalling in the Pegasse. We followed him for a while to take a few photographs and then headed over to Pena Oroel to join the Duo. There wasn't a lot of lift on the sunny side of the hill, but we noticed that the vultures were heading into wind from the rock face in shadow and seemed to be going up, so we copied them and found an area of lift in front of the rock face that we soared for quite some time before final gliding back to the field and landing after 2 hours 15 minutes.

That was the last day, we headed home the following day. I had done 10 hours of the most stunning flying I have ever done, and climbed higher than ever before.

My impression of Santa Cilia was that it is gliding paradise. The staff were very friendly and accommodating, the airfield operation was very efficient and the field is easy to fly from, the flying conditions were amazing for February, and the scenery awesome. It was also very cheap flying, we took high tows, they worked out at about £20 an aerotow. The food and accommodation were also very good and very cheap.

What I learned about mountain flying is that the lift isn't where you think it's going to be, and that your top half gets very hot and your legs and feet get very cold.

Thanks to everyone from Midland Gliding Club who did all the organising (mainly Jan) and everyone there who made it such a fantastic week.