Never a flying expedition has been so improbable and close to cancellation. I did everything to go to the end, against all odds, strikes, social violence, refusal of insurers: I was abandoned by most of those who had supported the project, including all the French. The support of the pilots of the Olmu\u00e9 club (Club de Planeadores de Valparaiso) was total and unlimited, the club gave me four volunteer \u00ab\u00a0legal pilot-in-command\u00a0\u00bb throughout one month. Thank them, without them we could not have done anything under these extreme conditions. In one month, the S10 flew 91 hours including 21 hours of local engine, plus 12 hours for the ferry flight, without incident.
If the \u00ab\u00a0classic wave\u00a0\u00bb project in the South had to be canceled for lack of third party liability insurance, it was brilliantly replaced with a \u00ab\u00a0tropical wave\u00a0\u00bb part, as extraordinary as it was unexpected.
Calama was a necessary hell given the social situation, but allowed us to identify and resolve all the technical and administrative difficulties; we now have all the elements to establish a real gliding base in San Pedro de Atacama where I have no doubt that the candidates will flock, me first.
The Chileans will have to find a solution to secure the place, by subcontracting to security companies. The Stemme S10 is well suited to these conditions, the S10-VT model would be even better to climb faster from 2,400 m to 5,000 m in 30 km. For classic self-launching gliders, it will be necessary to check the takeoff characteristics at 2,400 m and 30 \u00b0C, and how to reach 5,000 m; it will probably be necessary to change the carburetor jets and correct the mixture, no doubt that the manufacturers have a solution. A tug plane would also be welcome for non-powered gliders, the ideal being the Pilatus PC6, there are some available for hire in the country. For ballasting, no need for antifreeze, the communal well is a few hundred meters away.
In November and early December, temperatures are still pleasant and the tourist flow is acceptable, therefore good availability of accommodation and fair prices. After, and especially in January, it can also be another type of hell!
Here, the decor is set to launch glider flying in San Pedro de Atacama, the Chileans loved it, the virus \u00ab\u00a0discovery flight\u00a0\u00bb, opposed to \u201ckm only\u201d also spreads around Vitacura (club of Santiago). For Europeans, gliders can be delivered 300 km from San Pedro, in the port of Antofagasta, no need to go to Valparaiso, 1,600 km further south.
Good news for lovers of wide spaces and discoveries!<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_post_nav show_prev=\u00a0\u00bboff\u00a0\u00bb _builder_version=\u00a0\u00bb4.4.8″][\/et_pb_post_nav][et_pb_gallery gallery_ids=\u00a0\u00bb4900,4899,4751,4750″ fullwidth=\u00a0\u00bbon\u00a0\u00bb _builder_version=\u00a0\u00bb4.4.8″ auto=\u00a0\u00bbon\u00a0\u00bb auto_speed=\u00a0\u00bb2000″][\/et_pb_gallery][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Never a flying expedition has been so improbable and close to cancellation. I did everything to go to the end, against all odds, strikes, social violence, refusal of insurers: I was abandoned by most of those who had supported the project, including all the French. The support of the pilots of the Olmu\u00e9 club (Club […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4276,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"1080","footnotes":""},"categories":[134],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atacama-2019-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/topfly-aero.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/topfly-aero.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/topfly-aero.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/topfly-aero.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/topfly-aero.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5093"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/topfly-aero.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5447,"href":"https:\/\/topfly-aero.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5093\/revisions\/5447"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/topfly-aero.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/topfly-aero.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/topfly-aero.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/topfly-aero.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}