Freesteel Blog » 2017 » July

Thursday, July 27th, 2017 at 12:45 pm - - Hang-glide

Before I dampened and broke my brand new computer by keeping it overnight in the tent I was trying some simulations of Kalman filters derived from open source implementations in order to get a handle on the overly complex mathematical formulations of this technology in, say, one dimensional filter data.

It appears that the one dimensional kalman filter is a worthless beast that obscures a simple trivial exponential filter behind it.
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Wednesday, July 19th, 2017 at 10:05 am - - Hang-glide

Sometimes things you’ve always dreamed of happening grab you by pure chance.

beckabefore3

I could have organized this event at great expense in England on some boring ridge soaring ridge, but I got unlucky during a competition, and then got real lucky to do this.

At the start of the day I was mixing it up at cloud-base with all these competition hang-gliders.

beckabefore1

And then 20 minutes later I got found out and scraped down into a wheat field 10kms to the north of take-off.

beckabefore2

Luckily one of the other competition pilots came down near me, and his retrieve driver (who, unlike my retrieve drivers isn’t more often retrieved by the pilot than the correct way round) picked us both up, and I persuaded them to take me up to the top of the hill for one last flight on Monte Cucco at the end of the holiday.

And just then, Becka was about to take off on her tandem flight which we had been rescheduling day after day during the week.

Her tandem flight lasted long enough for me to completely rig my glider, take off, and climb up to them close enough for a wave.

Later, I carried on flying for too long and landed in the field while they were trying to give the prize giving. This was delayed because of me as they needed my tracklog from my crappy flight before they could officially calculate and release the figures.

When I finally showed up I was invited to stand on the winners podium and be humiliated in front of everyone while the contest scorer squirted a water pistol at me.

Becka does not have a photo.

Saturday, July 15th, 2017 at 11:08 am - - Weekends

Becka needed a holiday after the hardship of being near a hang-gliding competition, so we abandoned the car behind the hostel and got a lift to Fossato which had direct trains to Rome Termina for 11 Euros each.

Here’s us waiting on the wrong platform, proving that we don’t know the Italian for: “The platform for the train to Rome has changed.”

romefossato

The very first off-the-street up-the-stairs hotel we walked into put us both up for 100 Euros for two nights. We got lucky. We were both hot and bothered, so I snoozed on the bed while Becka went out and used up some excess energy and sweat for no particularly productive reason.

Then we had a beer and went out for some undiluted touristing.
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Friday, July 14th, 2017 at 2:07 pm - - Kayak Dive

I had a recollection that some people complained bitterly about how bitterly cold they were at some points during the winter. Why didn’t we leave the country and move somewhere hot? they moaned.

Within one minute of rolling up at the campsite in somewhere hot, in Banjole near Pula in Croatia, the complaints about never wanting to be taken somewhere that was too hot began streaming like sweat.

We put on our swimsuits, fins, masks and snorkels and swam round Fratarski Island, because I’d read of afternoon kayaking/snorkeling tours involving caves and fish and stuff like that in this place.

We saw sea cucumbers, squads of fish and rocks in the very clear blue water, and froze ourselves to the bone, especially when swimming down more than two metres past the thermocline.

Then we got out and felt too hot again.

The local dive operator (of which there are many) offered lots of dive sites below 30m, which we thought were too deep for us at our present state of being out of practice. Also, to be honest, we are cheapskates.

On the second day of this outrageous beach holiday hell we cycled to the end of the Kamenjak peninsula and went for to the east of the Safari Bar.

First there is a small cave above the waterline. Then there are some swim throughs under arches among the rocks three metres below the water surface. If you keep going you get to a cliff where people jump in, and just on the other side is a swim-into cave with a few cms of air space at the entrance that ends with a nice long swim through to the outside. We followed a dozen Croatians into here and there was quite a commotion among them when a jellyfish was seen below the water among their thrashing feet.

We got out, walked back, tried doing another snorkel off Cap Kamenjak, which wasn’t half as good and turned up only a few stingrays on the sandy floor that were dead.

We returned for an ice cream and drove onwards to the Soca valley in Slovenia.

But I thought this looked like a good place for some kayak diving. If only someone local actually did it around here. It would be a bit crazy doing it an unusual way in a place that is far away from your home. It’s easier to bend the rules when you are at home because you are at least familiar with them and know how they work. In spite of this, I am told that Croatia is not exotic enough for a diving holiday.

Tuesday, July 11th, 2017 at 4:32 pm - - Canyon, Hang-glide

I sneaked in a couple of gorgeous flights in between canyonning adventures with Becka in the last three days.

On the 8th July, while staying at Tramoniti di Sotto we did the canyons Torrent La Foce and Rio Carlo Gasparini in the morning (the latter of which is not in Si Flower’s book and should be), followed by Becka driving me up and leaving me behind on top of the hill above Meduno (Italy).

As usual, very few of the photos were any use. This is from La Foce.

And this is from Gasparini, selected based on a tip-off from 4lander.it website listed in a canyoning leaflet.

The canyon ends by joining the much larger Torrente Arzino where you bob along in the swiftly flowing blue-green crystal clear water until the climbing out point. Magical.

This is my BWG (boring white glider, which describes the top surface) on behind the Meduno takeoff. As I explained to Becka, I would be consumed by jealousy if I saw one of these and didn’t have one of my own.

And here it is being boring and white in the bottom landing field with no bent aluminium. For once I timed the flare perfectly and landed on my feet like a pro. Boy was I grinning.

meduno

The next day (9th July) we did Torrente Cosa, which passes through the property of the showcave Grotte di Pradis (see the walkways in the background). The canyoneer’s advice is to write a note in Italian saying what you are doing and hand it in at the showcave so they don’t get annoyed at people unexpectedly traipsing through, but the man in the ticket booth didn’t really know what to make of it and waved us away.

Cosa had one scary bit where I abseiled into a cauldron of water in a dark cavey section and couldn’t easily fight past the swirling current while dangling on the rope.

Then we had a late lunch before the long drive to Camp Gabrje near Tolmin.

The next day we cycled over for a quick tour of the relatively underwhelming and costly Tolmin Gorges before I caught the taxi up to the top of the Kobala takeoff.

tolmintop

The lift looked weak. For a while there was a wall of paragliders directly in front of takeoff and none getting higher. Then I saw two birds circling behind them, waited for a gap, and then thermalled directly up to cloudbase.

I lost it all crossing over to the next ridge to the West where I soared ineffectively for the rest of the afternoon not daring to venture into the mountains behind. I’d never been here before and hadn’t looked at a map. The wings felt totally natural on me. I’ve really grown to like them.

tolminlanding

And for a second time in a row, I landed on my feet with no bent aluminium.

Then I had a 45 minute walk back to the campsite in the sweltering humid heat to pack up the tent, fetch the car, drive back to the landing field, pick up my glider, and then go on a chase after Becka who was busy road-cycling to the Italian border via Bovec.

I’ve made a habit of having to retrieve my retrieve driver.

Now we are at Expo base camp in Austria where Becka is going to do a lot of caving and I am going to make myself bored until I start doing the chores that I have been putting off until now. Which includes writing up my logbook, blogging and looking at forgotten flight data.