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.
