Erick Angles <<atout.vents>>
writes:

The Bleyne Cross Country Classik is over. 20 pilots made it to
this first of a kind in France bringing together comp and cross country pilots
on the same site. In this case, this was on one of the best cross country site
that we have in France due to it’s location and a south east orientation for
early starts.

We had pilots ranging from Antoine, silver medal winner at the last worlds and
most of the French Class 1 and 5 Teams as well some cross country figures such
as Mark Haycraft and local comp and cross country pilots (you would think that
local pilots would be advantaged playing at home but these 3 days proved us
otherwise !).

Let’s just say that it was amazing to see this happy bunch have at it for 3 days
and just piling up kilometers flight after flight and see the grin on their
faces. It was also truly inspiring for local pilots to witness what that these
guys brought into the game and the originality and creativity regarding the
routes they took to get where they wanted to go!

To mention just a few, in 3 days, Antoine alone flew about 700Kms in 21h of
flight. The last flyable day, 6 of them landed in St Hilaire’s official LZ in
Lumbin and two landed in Alberville while Mark tried to close a circuit and has
to land in St Andre at nightfall about 20 Kms short from a 300 FAI ! The same
day, Guillaume Chatain (Antoine’s good friend), the only PG pilot who came to
play with the hang gliders, lands in Bourg St Maurice, not far from the Italian
border just before sunset. The perspective of a very long retrieve if he landed
in Italy made him ‘burn’ 2000 meters in 360s just to land before nightfall.

All together, this was a very friendly challenge proving that performance
doesn’t necessarily come with competition !

Most of the flights are there (some pilots didn’t upload them and 1 amazing
flight couldn’t be validated because of Air Space Infringements:
http://delta.ffvl.fr/cfd/liste/2014/last

Some pictures taken by Alain and I:
https://picasaweb.google.com/105386951176123199820/15051113BleyneXCClassik

Guillaume Chatain's little video from that epic flight:
https://www.facebook.com/100008726616672/videos/1441124729521734/?pnref=stor

Mark's post on FB:
https://www.facebook.com/mark.haycraft.5/posts/1564839040449312?pnref=story