Pierre’s Rondel Interview |

Pierre’s Rondel Interview

April 7th, 2009

Hi Pierre, congratulations. I just have lost count of how many times you won in La Muela.

This is my third win: 1995, 2009, 2010. I really like this contest since I discovered it while starting to fly F3F. For me this is a mythic place. In addition, I love spain, the landscapes, the food, the people. That ‘s why I came in 2010 despite the contest was not at the Eurotour calendar.

Conditions this time were very challenging and variable, as usual this kind of slope has a strong thermic component, and you semeed to made the best of that.

This is all about F3F: I always smile when hearing some comments saying that I got only good air during this competition. F3F, it’s the ability to adapt to the slope, to the air of the moment in order to do the best time when you have correct conditions, not necessarely the best conditions of the round, and to not loose too much points when you have bad air. Retrospectively, I was lucky wih the start order because the fisrt day, I was not flying in the first pilots while the wind was growing slowly. The second day, being the 3rd pilot to flight in the round, I flew in very very light air, lower than the average, but the lift didn’t really increased during the round. However, this round is still my discard. I fighted during all the contest, took all the risks during the first round, exploited the air I got during each round, the last turn, the last lap of the 6th round. In brief, “preparation”, “concentration”, “combativity” is what I try to apply each time.

We have seen you flight all kind of gliders, but this time Alliaj HM, at first sight I honestly thought that would be a little bit heavy but it performed very well .

This year, I changed lots of gliders: Alliaj HM and Dingo are my choice. We will see if they full fil my expectations ! I noticed during the free flights and the competition that the Alliaj HM was keeping the speed and energy longer than the other planes, including the very popular Freestyler. I believe that a plane can make the difference on a round, let’s say a 10 to 15% difference. After seing the first flights of the Alliaj HM end of 2009, I decided to switch to this plane and ordered one. The Dingo is also very promising: very fast, even empty, and it keeps his speed in turn. I need to fly it more before the next competitions.

So, Viking Race is just very close to start. We know, as we have seen many times before that french level is very high.

The French F3F progressed a lot since 2004. Thanks to talented pilots like Pierre Platon or Alexis Marechal, We worked on the turn technics, understand better how the different slopes work, and adapt our piloting to the slope. The french pilots are stronger than ever. We will see if they are able to desmontrate it in the coming months …

Thank you and good luck for VR.

Thank you Fernando ! Viking Race is the most important event of the season, first as a pilot, part of the french team, and team manager, but also as part of the organisation (webmaster, picture updates, etc …). To really split the two roles, I’m not part of the officials on the slope, which is normal, but it’s still lots of pressure. If the weather is with us, it should be a very very nice competition ! So stay tuned on http://vkr2010.free.fr/ !!! !!!!