Attention: after 18 years of offering accommodation in our own home we have decided to have our home back but we can recommend a very nice hotel in the local village of Le Fayet. La Chaumiere. This hotel, just a few minutes from us, has a bar, very good restaurant, sauna, Jacuzzi, climbing wall, wifi and very nice rooms, all at very competitive prices. For the hotel details go to: www.lachaumierehotel.com

The village of Le Fayet has a number of restaurants, bars, post office with ATM machine and a main line railway that links up to Chamonix and onto Switzerland via a mountain railway.

Domancy and Chamonix Valley - December 5th

The snow is here: At last the long drought has broken and it snowing above 1400m with a good forecast of snow down to 700metres over the next few days. The temperature has been low for a while and the ground is frozen so the new snow should stay at least above 1500m before the onslaught of winter comes!

The flying season is just about over. We still get out a few times a week, just to keep our hand in but the flights have now turned into long top to bottoms as the thermic year is all but finished.

The days are still mild with temperatures reaching 11c. Winter is approaching and the nights are now down to freezing: it shouldn't be long before the snow arrives.

The flying during the spring and summer gave extremely good flying. a number of excellent XC flight were made in this area with good distances most days. See the French League: http://parapente.ffvl.fr/cfd/liste/2010/last

Check out Gillian's blog for the latest news Blog pages.


     BHPA - EPC - CPC Courses.......  We are a BHPA registered school..!

We are offering EPC and CPC course using either in group courses and/or with 'Direct Instruction'. The group courses up to EPC level are taken with our associated French school where the instructors speak good English. All the necessary class room work for the BHPA-EPC examination can be completed with Dennis and Gillian. Please see the 'Beginners page' for details. CPC training is offered only with us, Dennis and Gillian, using our 'Direct Instruction' method.

'Direct Instruction' is a great way to train all the way to CPC as results happen quickly and not only does this training method include all the BHPA tasks but we add a number of mountain and thermalling tasks into the course, ensuring the new pilot is ready for mountain flying in the high Alps. 'Direct Instruction' training means you have your own instructor exclusively and it costs 210 Euros a day, plus 25 Euros a day for glider/harness rental, if this is required.

However, having reached EPC if you buy decide to a Glider, Harness and Reserve from us we will offer you the 'Direct Instruction' CPC course at just 160 Euros a day and refund the rental and the extra 50 Euros a day training charge if you had 'Direct Instruction' training with us from scratch!

On average and with 'Direct Instruction' a new pilot completes their EPC & CPC ratings in around 8 or 9 days, and the training concludes with a number of hours of airtime, plenty of soaring and some long thermalling flights.

From March to October the weather conditions are at their best for beginners and new pilots to the mountains. As autumn approaches the stable days are long and the steady flying conditions suit all standards and our chalet is just a few minutes from our training and flying area maximizing the day's training.  Go to our 'Direct Instruction' page for more training details!

           

Annual Flying...

The flying year 2011 turned out OK with 234 flying days from February to the end of October: please see the chart below for details.

We had some very good flying conditions most of the season. The spectacular periods with high cloud base and good thermals generally came in April and May where some extremely good XC flights of more than 200kms were made from this area. The rest of year gave good local XC flying and very good training conditions for both beginners and intermediate pilots, and all in all we had a very busy year. On the chart 2011 starts with two months details missing as we didn't fly during this period. In 2011 our flying season got going in February.

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We have kept a record of all the flying days we've had in this area since 1996 and you can see on the chart below the number of flying days doesn't change much each year. The mid winter flying window is around 2-3 hours extending to 11 hours in the spring and summer. Some mid summer days have strong thermic periods where pilots become grounded for a few hours, otherwise the annual flying conditions are very good. It has to be said that not all the days produce fantastic flying conditions but it's not bad here and realistically we fly for about 65% of the year: the chart speaks for itself.

    

Date	Dec	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	June	July	Aug	Sept	Oct	Total
1996	n/a	20	15	23	25	16	22	20	21	26	20	208
1997	11	17	17	26	25	24	21	25	27	27	20	240
1998	n/a	19	26	19	17	30	24	24	27	19	15	220
1999	17	13	11	18	19	23	23	29	22	24	17	216
2000	2	22	13	17	18	26	26	17	25	25	19	210
2001	19	14	14	10	17	28	20	25	25	19	28	219
2002	17	30	12	22	23	17	27	22	23	27	n/a	220
2003	11	17	20	28	20	22	27	24	26	22	16	233
2004	15	6	21	16	22	22	25	26	27	27	19	226
2005	19	20	16	25	17	26	28	27	20	27	25	250
2006	4	24	17	12	19	23	30	30	19	23	20	221
2007	18	16	13	21	30	21	25	23	24	22	26	239
2008	20	16	24	12	18	27	18	22	28	25	14	224
2009	12	17	10	20	25	18*	18*	27	28	29	27	231
2010	10	13	11	16	25	19	17*	29	22*	23	n/a*	185
2011	n/a	n/a	22	27	28	25	25	29	26*	27	25	234
2012

                   *  We were away for a period so this may not a be a true picture of this months flying!

Copyright ©2010. All rights reserved. Dennis and Gillian Trott
Alpine Flying Centre - 799 rte de la Grangeat, 74700 Domancy. France.
Tel +33(0)610634558 - e-mail info@alpineflyingcentre.com - Siret FR13 407 940 840 00025