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Flying in France

Posted on August 19, 2013 in Phil Jennings   

So as promised in my last blog here is the latest on my trip to France. I have known Pascal Valle猫 from 2009 when we met at my first British Open and have competed against him many a time since. For those unaware of him he is one of the top pilots in France and recently became World champion in 2012. When he is not competing he runs a very successful school in Angoul锚me and also runs various Master classes across the country.

So at the last French open I spoke with Pascal about some dedicated slalom training as the World slalom competition was in a month. Although I have entered a few of these style competitions before and have been doing precision tasks for years I am only self taught so I new I could do a lot better. So I packed the camper and drove the 700 miles to the South West of France for a busy week. The first morning was a usual 6am start, erecting pylons before sunrise so we could maximize the morning. I was the only English ‘student’ and was joined by 2 of Pascals 3 Six team, Fabian an ex French champion motocross rider and Mikey a local builder. After a quick brief it was time for me to demonstrate my best moves using my GTR 18 and Zenith 200. 3 runs later I was confronted with the truth…my technique was poor! Although not slow it was lacking fluidity and could be improved on immensely.

So slowly task by task I tried to unlearn my bad habits and listen to Pascals advice to improve my times.

The days were long and hot so we were doing 4 hours during the morning till it got thermic, and 3 hours in the evening till sunset. I can tell you that after 6 days and over 120 take offs and landings my body knew about it!

In all most of my times improved by 3-4 seconds which is great but more importantly I have lots more work to do and they will get even better.

Hopefully the next few weeks will yield some calm nights and I can try and improve things further but failing that i’ll be learning ‘on the job’ with the rest of the British team out in Aspres-Sur-Beuch for the Slalom World championship in September.

Wish us luck!

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