333 km through the Alps
Record-achieving glider: Ozone's HPP
Ozone’s designer Dav Dagault has completed the flight of a lifetime and flown a record breaking 333 km on 20 August 2009. Dav took off at 10.30 am from his local site at Col de Bleyne in the southern French Alps. Over almost ten hours he flew the entire length of the French Alps and on into Switzerland. The flight, the longest ever flight in mountains, is also a new French distance record.
Flying a Baby H.P.P., Ozone’s cutting edge prototype wing that has an aspect ratio of 8.4, a top speed of 70 km/h and a full point in glide better than Ozone’s comp wing the Mantra R09, Dav described the flight as “First part, hard work, cos it was too stable, second part dream flight 4,200 m cloud base, 10 m/s thermals and straight lining for ages above Belledonnes [the long northwest facing range of mountains that leads north from Grenoble].
“The highlight of the flight had to be cruising the west face of Mt Blanc, high above the glaciers, bathed in orange evening light”, he told XC Mag earlier today.
The flight nearly fell short of the current French and European record, held by Frenchman Frank Arnaud with a flight of 328 km from a small hill outside Paris in June of this year.
“I thought I was down at the border of Switzerland between Chamonix and Martigny. The day was almost finished and the valley totally shaded. Then I hit convergence and got up one more time.”
From there Dav dived in to the Wallis ‘racing’ valley and the rest was “free kilometres” which he happily munched away on a final glide.
Full report and interview in the next issue of XC Mag.
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Tags: Alps, David Dagault, France, Records
August 22nd, 2009 at 9:35 am
I think european record is still hold by Karel Vejchodsky from czech flatlands http://www.xcontest.org/2008/world/en/flights/detail:charlie/28.7.2008/09:23
August 24th, 2009 at 9:21 am
Karel Vejchodskys flight is not measured in one straight line while David Dagaults is? An important detail!
August 24th, 2009 at 11:20 am
Straight-line distance of Karel’s flight is 332.62. David has \only\ 276 km. As far as I understand, 332.5 km is measured across 1 turnpoint.
October 12th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
A really great flight! Congratulation, and my deep admiration for Dav’s flying skills.
Sadly, however, Dav Dagault was reported to have violated the airspace in Sion on his final glide. (For more facts, the track log would be helpful. Any ideas whether and where it is published?)
Also sad, that XCmag did not even mention that point in the full article. The paragliding community has a lot of trouble with airspaces – more and more every year -, and with airspace violations of disrespectful pilots. The latter cause a difficulty for our representatives in all negotiations about airspaces: We claim airspace like any other stakeholder, but we deny the duties that come along with rights?
Personally I would expect and appreciate an opinion leading magazine to touch this sensitive issue, not ignore it.
October 15th, 2009 at 8:58 am
Hi Flightobserver
Dav tells us he wasn’t aware he had clipped airspace. Neither were we when we published the article.
Whilst we agree that all air users should be responsible for the respect of airspace, it seems a terrible shame to focus on this negative point when discussing such a magnificent achievement as flying 333km through the mountains.
Dav’s tracklog is published on the FFVL site, but unfortunately, as stated in the article in XC Mag, his GPS failed to record the entire flight.
Bob Drury
editor – XC Mag
October 26th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Dear XCMag,
Nobody’s arguing on the beauty of David’s flight, but your information on a “record breaking flight” is wrong (probably because you didn’t have the right information by the time when you wrote your article):
1/ David’s flight has been “invalidated” (cancelled), and it is no longer on the FFVL’s site. The reason is not because David’s gps failed to record the entire flight but, as flightobserver wrote, because David violated the airspace in Sion.
2/ In any ways, David’s flight, in staight distance, represents 276 kilometers, you haven’t mentionned that 332,5 km was calculated with a turning point.
3/ Thus, Karel Vejchodsky is still the european distance record holder with a straight line flight of 332,62 km (and Franck Arnaud is still the distance record holder in France with a straight distance flight of 328 km).
And Flightobserver’s remarks on the necessity to abide by the airspace laws seem rather important and, I hope, shared by XCMag.