Paragliding in Annecy
It smells like summer…
June 7, 2005
Over the past few months, my readers must have noticed a slight dip in JPP’s spirits. But things are getting better now. The biopsy results were negative; no cancer cells were found in the tissue sample. Good. Now we can go full steam ahead. First, I went for a little flight over Annecy. Thirty years ago, in 1975, I flew there using a “Manta” glider. Back then, there was no launch ramp at Col de la Forclaz, nor any prepared landing area. We took off from a slope surrounded by pine trees, flying just above the treetops. Then, turning left, we flew right over the tables of people dining at nearby restaurants. The landing area probably hasn’t changed much since then. I remember once, while approaching the landing zone, I flew just ten meters above a field. Right in the middle of that field, a naked couple was having sex. I could see the guy’s white buttocks moving rhythmically. I waved at the girl, who waved back. By the time her lover turned around, confused, I had already disappeared behind some trees. He must have wondered who she was waving at… Maybe an angel, perhaps. It’s normal to feel like you’re in heaven during such flights.
Suddenly, I really want to get my glider out of storage and fly in places like this again. Annecy is a truly wonderful place, especially at the beginning of summer. Laurent has also been flying for thirty years. We’ve met a few times. But I mostly flew further south, around Laragne and other places. I flew tandem with him once. I highly recommend it. He’s a calm, reliable, and experienced pilot. (For Annecy: 04 50 45 10 00. Office located at Col de la Forclaz.) Unforgettable flight: 80 euros.
JPP and Laurent. July 2005
I prefer free-flying gliders. They resemble birds more closely. You fly lying flat on your stomach. My first flights were in 1974, in Chamonix, with the son of mountaineer Lachenal, who accompanied Herzog on his expedition to Annapurna in the Himalayas. He owned one of the first “Manta” gliders (with a 90-degree angle of incidence; fixed transverse structure). There were no tandem flights back then. I believe we flew at Grands Montets. Takeoff and landing were done on skis. Lachenal told his clients to launch themselves straight down the slope while keeping the wings completely flat. Once the wings started to flutter properly, they pushed forward and flew up to ten or fifteen meters high. The normal descent rate was 2.5 m/s. But since we landed on skis, everything went smoothly. Upon returning to Aix, I immediately ordered such a glider. I remember it cost 1800 francs back then. It arrived in a long cardboard tube shipped by Sernam. I assembled it and began flying alone in local ski resorts. People working at ski lifts were curious and allowed me to fly with my long glider under my arm. In 1974, there weren’t many people in France who practiced this sport. There were no schools either. It was impossible to find any books on how to fly.
When the snow melted, I didn’t know how to take off. So I modified an old pair of skis by adding wheels from a stroller. I don’t know how I managed not to crash with such a device lacking brakes. Then I returned to Chamonix, where I met a small group of people who flew using what we called “wings.” One of them was Michel Katzman. When I showed him my skis with wheels, he burst out laughing. I learned that one could take off and land using just one’s legs. My first “big flight” was in Cluses, with Odile, my partner. The day before, a friend told me, “It bothers me seeing you practice this sport without a helmet. I’ll give you my brother’s climbing helmet.” That helmet almost got me killed. It was too small for me, making me look like Obélix. Odile advised me to run fast, which I did. But when the rope connecting my harness to the glider tightened, it pulled the helmet down over my eyes. Before I even touched the ground, I was blind. I tried to lift the helmet using one hand while holding onto the control bar with the other. But these maneuvers led me straight toward a large tree. Turning around? Impossible. Remembering my flight lessons at Supaéro using a Piper Cub, I dove downward at the last moment, managing to clear the tree without losing speed. Odile, flying 100 meters above me, couldn’t understand why I was flying so low. At landing, I saw a telephone line right in front of me. Disaster! To make a turn while flying one-handed and holding a helmet with the other hand, especially during one’s first flight, is quite difficult. Odile found me lying in the grass, catching my breath.
For fifteen years, I flew with Katzman every summer. Then, one winter, he died in Méribel along with a client. A component of his glider broke mid-flight. Michel refused to use a parachute. “He didn’t believe in such cumbersome and useless equipment near the ground.” His death left a huge void in my life. We were like brothers. I wrote a song about him. Listen here Flying alone or with strangers isn’t the same. If I found others interested in this sport in my region, I’d definitely start flying again. But there aren’t many enthusiasts anymore. Paragliding is easier to use; it can be stored in a car trunk.
Video of my flight over Lake Annecy. Quicktime format, 8 MB.
I’m currently writing new scientific papers as well as the GESTO report. My readers await a new book from me. It’s planned. I also need to try to change this ridiculous world where politicians and scientists are dishonest enough to invest ten billion euros in ITER—a project doomed to failure, just like its predecessor, TORE SUPRA (which took 20 years to achieve the “miracle” result: “the superconducting magnet works”). I’ll explain this in detail in another article.
Thanks to British experience, scientists at Cadarache will succeed in producing fusion reactions within the massive ring-shaped chamber invented forty years ago by Artsimovitch. But the fastest hydrogen atoms will break through the magnetic barrier, knocking heavy atoms off the walls. These ions will cool down the electron gas via “bremsstrahlung radiation.” This cooled electron gas will further chill the hydrogen plasma, which contains numerous atoms causing radiative cooling (proportional to the square of their nuclear charge). Soon, this costly reactor will cease functioning.
“Okay,” scientists might say, “70 years to start a project is indeed long. But give us 100 billion euros, and next time it’ll work.”
It disgusts me to see people launching such wasteful projects, justifying them by claiming they create jobs. It’s pure nonsense, a scam. For the “scientific community” (here, hundreds of Polytechnicians), it’s a way to travel extensively and hold conferences worldwide. ITER’s greatest advantage is its location in one of the most beautiful regions on Earth. Skiing is nearby, as is the sea. Aix-en-Provence is just twenty minutes away via highway. It’s a paradise for tourism. You’ll even see a TGV station built at Cadarache so these gentlemen can attend theater performances in Paris. ITER is essentially EuroDisneyland for physicists.
This is the result of collaboration between researchers and engineers who care more about quality of life than science and energy production. I guarantee that if ITER were built in Iceland, there’d be far less enthusiasm and fewer participants.
Conversely, with ten billion euros, we could greatly advance research on solar energy, renewable energies, wind power, and fuel cells. Money is essential for research. Do you know where modern computing originated? From Project Apollo, where compact and lightweight computers were needed. Without space exploration and the need to guide military rockets, we’d still be using transistors the size of peas. Aren’t you surprised to find drills in hardware stores powered by batteries of incredible compactness and capacity? Twenty years ago, this didn’t exist. It’s a byproduct of space technology—the need to provide astronauts with compact, lightweight, and efficient tools. Without space exploration, none of this would exist.
What benefits will ITER bring, even if it fails? None. TORE SUPRA, the previous fusion reactor developed at Cadarache, yielded no results whatsoever—no power output, no benefits.
With ten billion euros and intelligent ministers of research (I’m thinking of Claudie Haigneré, oh dear…), we could foster meaningful research. But do governments truly want to develop energy sources that yield no profits, especially ones that don’t generate taxes? All this nonsense disgusts me as a researcher, who was also once a talented experimenter.
We must explain how people are deceived by promises like “we’ll create an artificial sun” or similar nonsense. It’s horrible. We live in one of the most creative countries in the world, where people have countless ideas. Yet developing a simple idea is incredibly difficult. But when it comes to wasting money (ITER, Museum of Science and Technology, etc.), there’s no problem at all. Taxpayers’ money flows freely.