After about 7hrs of driving, Sunday night was spent camping in a hotel car park just north of Paris. Having mistakenly assumed there would be room at the inn, we had not pre-booked, but with JB packing everything and the kitchen sink, the stay was pretty comfortable.
The drive south on Monday saw the grey drizzly overcast of Sunday give way to bright sun and high cloud bases, with localised storms developing in the mountains.
Approaching Grenoble and the start of the mountains
Tuesday we had our check flights with off the clock thermals and wonderful visibility and then spent the afternoon driving along the base of the Parkour to see the out-landing fields of Marcoux, Seyne, Espinass, and Montgardin. These are the fields that we will most likely be "local to" when we start mountain hopping in gliders, so a good confidence building exercise with spectacular scenery as a bonus.
Seyne Gliding Club with the peak of Tet de L'Estrop at 2961m in the clouds
lac de Serre Poncon
So to Wednesday, gliders rigged and rearing to go with fairly good forecast but the prospect of rain in the afternoon. I was grounded as we were unable to contact the French CAA to acquire the equivalence licence permission although all the relevant paper work was in order. So helped Christian, the La Motte CFI launch the grid (he was driving the winch) and watched enviously as JB spiralled up into the heavens. That was 4 hours ago and he's still airborne having fun.
