Under a Canopy in Tenerife
February 1996
by Peter Price
On the first day we woke to find that it had rained during the night and now there was a low cloudbase. The wind was a strong easterly. A site was chosen and after checking out the landing area we drove to the top. ‘Blown Out!’ – just like Pendle. Later, on our way home we decided to look at the training site luckily it was about 100ft below cloudbase so we all had a flight or two here before heading off for a restaurant.
The next day ‘base was still low at around 4000ft, just clearing the top of the mountain that dominates the Los Americas skyline, El Conde, so it was decided that the two more novice pilots would fly the ‘training slope’ and the rest of us would go higher into the mountains. I elected to fly last after ensuring a clean launch for everyone then setting myself up.
During the launch I found that I’d snapped a brake line so decided to fly straight down the valley and, if I had enough height, cross to the valley with the landing fields. About halfway down I encountered a very smooth large thermal which I cored. My aim on this trip was to put into practice all I had learned about thermals. Using everything I’d read or been told I found that very soon I was at cloudbase. I mentioned my line break to those who had already landed and my position to make sure I had a chance to gloat later in the pub.
With my line repaired courtesy of the paraglider first aid kit, we were taken back to the launch site for the early afternoon thermals to sort our stomachs out.
Daren Williams, an experienced pilot, went first and had headed off to the right around the corner to a known thermal source (a set of very large rock spines) and reported that there was lift available, so I followed. We lost height indulging in photography then the lift became harder to find so we started scratching. After a while I’d lost so much height that I couldn’t clear the ridge to get to the landing area so to minimise the walk out I set out on a final glide down the valley I was in towards the motorway.
At about 150’ agl I encountered the familiar feeling of my canopy pitching upwards, damping the inevitable dive I couldn’t believe my vario ( nor could the dogs who must have been deafened) 14 – 16 up and large I started a long slow 360° eventually tightening on the core. On seeing this Daren, who was also low (about 800ft above me), headed into my thermal. He mustn’t have damped the dive forward on entering the thermal enough as the next thing I saw him falling groundwards with a full frontal deflation, recovering at around my start point. By this time our take off became visible and everyone flying was heading in my direction. It seemed that the only way was up and I soon made cloudbase at about 5400ft. Looking below me I could see the melee of pilots circling below.
I took the plunge and headed across the valley to the mountain expecting to get hammered. However I only lost about 600ft which was soon replaced on the face of Conde. After about 30 minutes of popping in and out of cloud, most of the pilots had made base or headed off for the beach to impress the tourists. I decided to head off for Los Christianos as last year an instructor had impressed us all by doing this then spending the early evening soaring the sea cliffs there. Following a compass bearing in cloud I soon realised it is a long way, and very lonely compared to ridge soaring. Daren had followed the BEACH setting on his compass for 20 minutes while not being able to descend from the cloud and found himself emerging over the sea at about 5100ft giving him plenty of time to impress the tourists on the beach with wingovers, spiral dives and asymmetrics eventually doing a pinpoint landing, between the nicest females on the beach, to a large round of applause.
At about halfway I was down to below 4000ft but I still had the motorway, powerlines and a town to cross so keeping the speed bar full on I headed for what I’d been told could be a source of thermals, a small hill just before the motorway it worked and I was soon back up at base. Arriving with over 5000ft over Los Christianos blew my mind I’d never left the ridge before let alone flown over tower blocks. After a while I’d had enough and decided to call for a retrieve.
‘Can you pick me up please.’
‘Yeh sure. Where are you?’
‘The sea cliffs!’(smugly)
Losing my height over hotel pools was fun, first a left hand spiral losing around 1500ft then a right handed spiral to unwind myself, of about 2000ft it was then that I noticed my drift was away from the sea cliffs, checking this with the boat anchored out to sea I realised that landing would be fun. In my excitement I had flown up wind all the way and now I faced all the rotor coming in over the cliffs. I’d committed myself to land here so I gently 360°’d until I encountered a 60/70% asymmetric. This was dealt with but it didn’t seem right, everything was too quiet. I looked down to see an already large hotel getting larger very fast! Quickly running over the manoeuvres in ‘Instability’ in my mind I’d just got to ‘Big Ears’ when I thought I’d better do something quick, first I tried large brake on both sides – nothing, then I tried a large input on one side – the wing started slowly at first to turn so I thanked the Lord (audibly, I found out afterwards) and set up the landing and landed safely a few minutes later. It all happened very fast and I only lost around 600ft but every second felt like an hour.
The trip continued to be a very steep learning curve for everyone, even a ‘Sky God’ like myself.
Tenerife is an island of contrasts. The South is barren, almost desert like, with the climate influenced mainly by the sea breezes. The North is green, moist and in general more windy. The South is a major tourist destination with the resulting availablility of package deals and English speaking locals.
Unlike the Alps there are few restrictions on free flight. Spanish law insists on a reserve, there is no flying within the National Park (Mt. Tiede) and it’s advisable to contact local pilots. Landing out can mean a long walk out, and/or an evening, extracting ‘Prickly Pear’ spines out of various extremities (Someone even had them penetrate the soles of sturdy flying boots!)
The take off points are all high (even the ‘Training slope’ has a top to bottom height of over 1700ft and it is possible to get away from here and cover vast distances) and most are top driveable. Of the other sites I’d flown the year previously one was closed due to some German pilots upsetting the land owner and the launch site of another had been moved due to complications with a land owner, emphasising that communication with local pilots is a good idea.
The added bonus of Tenerife is that out of seven days there is a good chance that all would be flyable.
Our group of eight consisted of two instructors, two newly qualified pilots and four others of varying experience including myself. We had all independently decided to go with ‘Airborne’ as they sorted everything out from flights to retrieves, also it was possible for those without varios, radios, reserves and the like to rent them.
Canopy :- Swing Prisma (large)
Experience:- CP + 45 hours