Test drive Opel Astra Sport sedan since 2012 sedan
Sicily, Opel and Paraplanes
The car is one of the main characters of the trip. Once again, Opel undertook to prove this by crossing the SCICILAS SPORTS TOURER Models Astra and Insignia to the island of Sicily. But the spacious luggage of Sarayev with a total volume of over six thousand liters were not needed for smuggling to Russia of Sicilian lemons, they intended to justify that very Sports prefix. We were going to study the island not only from the Earth, but also to climb the air in the company of titled paraplanerists Dmitry Gusev and Denis Berdnikov.
In general, the line of universal Opheles leads its story from the 1953 Olympia Rekord Caravan model. That car was the first universal in its class in Europe. Then the models of Kadett Caravan, Ascona Voyage, Omega Caravan and Astra Caravan appeared. Until today, every universal Opel has somehow the personification of German practicality and the triumph of square. But evolution led the brand to modern Sports Tourer to the machines fashionable and stylish. The word Sports on the back door is designed to remind the owners that they bought not just requiring gasoline bags, but a dynamic machine for outdoor activities and travel
The plane landed in the town of skating, where we received our wheels. I got a white Astra with a 180-horsepower 1.6 liter turbo engine. Stop, or is it Insignia? A short, but hot, like Sicilian sun, flares up in the cabin. After all, if you have not been sitting behind the wheel for a long time, either the other car, then guessing the model will not be easier than dealing with the interface of the Opel infosystem. I was deceived in the cabin in the salon of the New Astra and the solid design of the front panel: therefore, I fiercely defended the opinion that I was sitting behind the Insignia steering wheel ... Definitely this is a compliment of the youngest model.
In the beginning, our path lay from skating to Taormina. We do not have time to drive away from the airport’s parking lot, Fiat Panda hangs on our tail. But her driver is not trying to read the name of the model on the trunk lid. This is just a local manner of driving a Benvenuti in Sicilia car, welcome! If on the road you were not bobbled, they did not squealed and did not jump up to your hands, then you are either not in Sicily or drive in a carbineer car. Local temperament dictates the rules of good tone: he gazed on the highway in the left row and already in a meter behind you persistently warms the old Fiat 500. You will wait for an unregulated intersection until you dare to give gas and disperse everyone with a decisive start to the sound of your own horn. The history of Sicily was always accompanied by conquests, feuds, the power of the mafia and the dominance of power. This is also reflected on the inhabitants of the island, it seems to be ordinary Italians, but with much more hot blood of their warlike ancestors.
So the driver of Panda could not stand it: he jumped out onto the oncoming lane, spun to the ringing of his motor with a volume of Pepsi cans and rose into the wilds of skating. From this labyrinth of narrow streets cannot be taken out without navigation. A minute brainstorming, and ... three adults stupidly stared at each other to understand the on -board navigation system. Opel was clearly overwhelmed with the number and role of control keys on the central console, and programmers, probably, loved in childhood computer games in the style of quest. By the way, many manufacturers sin the confused interfaces, but against the backdrop of competitors, the Opel interface resembles a nuclear reactor control panel ...
We rush along the Sicilian autobahn. Everything seems to be like in continental Europe, but the coating is much worse. But the cost of movement in paid areas is purely symbolic. For example, for a 15-minute section of the track you need to pay less than one euro, which is several times cheaper than in the same Spain. Restrictions on speed on such tracks as almost everywhere in Europe, 120 km/h. But to go according to the rules for local humiliation, so everyone sprinkles 140 and higher. In general, roads are very actively building in Sicily (by the way, a long -standing business of the notorious mafia): in three days we met many new or not yet completed overpasses, bridges, viaducts. Finally, we arrive in Taormina, from where tomorrow we will go to the highest active volcano in Europe.
Of course, we are talking about Etne. This volcano is about 500 million years old, and it is constantly breathing (the last eruption was recorded in April this year), covering its slopes with stones, ash and lava. In the process of eruptions, the relief and the height of the volcano, which is now a little more than 3.3 kilometers, changes. Despite the active life of Etna, locals love the volcano very much and hunt on its many slopes: they grow grapes, olives, oranges, lemons and other crops there. Therefore, the rise to the last public tourist site looks bewitching (hereinafter only on special buses or SUVs, in which, to lower the center of gravity of the tire is filled with water).
The road upstairs creeps steep, but not very tasty for an active driver with serpentines, and 180 degrees. But such a route allows you to evaluate the efforts of engineers setting up Astra. Today we have the same Sports Tourer, but already with a 140-horsepower engine 1.4 and a 6-speed handle. This Astra is contradictory: it has a narrow operating range of the engine and not a very intelligible transmission, but the chassis for the car of the golf segment is simply perfect. The body does not fall in corners, the rotation is close to neutral, and the steering wheel honestly tells the driver about what is happening under the front wheels. Therefore, to manage the universal Astra along mountain paths is pleasure.
And this barn is really beautiful and harmonious. Of course, against the backdrop of fantastic lunar landscapes of Etna, even Fiat Multipla (which, it seems, is only in Italy and buy from blind patriotism) will seem to be a work of art. But with Astra, the story is another car is good that against the background of volcanic nature, in urban slums of skating. It's all about the design of designers who provided the car with exquisite body proportions. The falling line of the roof, the wedge -shaped profile of the side glazing and the spoiler on the fifth door are the secrets of the dynamic profile of astrail with a trunk of 1550 liters. Surprisingly, the universal insignia drawn according to the same canons, the luggage compartment is even less than 1530 liters!
But on the eTNU we arrived not only with the aim of admiring the craters in the trunk of our Sports Tourer, backpacks with ... paraglids languish. By the way, without folding the second row, two domes, two pendants and a couple of bags climb into Astra. It is enough to look at the paraglider in the flight. What kind of aircraft is this? For the layman, everything is one: parachute, paraglider, deltaplane. You understand the difference, only picking up the slings. The paraglider is a dome-wing, as a whole resembling a parachute and related through a system of strong slings with a special saddle. It is called the suspension and is made together with a kind of backpack, in which a spare parachute is laid. The wing has two upper and lower planes, which are connected by vertical jumpers. The front edge, thus, consists of air intakes, into which the running wind falls and creates a driving force, and the lifting force is provided by an aerodynamic form like the aircraft wing.
The main restriction for the paraglider weather. The two main dangers are a strong wind and the rising thermal flows of air from the heated soil. Therefore, it is best to fly on a paraglider in medium -covered weather in the morning or closer in the evening, when the sun does not fierce the soil very violently
This design gives paragliders the main amazing freedom. On paraglider, you can not only smoothly go down from mountain heights, but also rise very high into the sky. For example, the world record of the highest flight of 4526 meters! Another exciting discipline is non -stop route flights, from one point to another, between which there may be up to 500 kilometers! This is not just a sport or journey, it is a different measurement of freedom, it is a causing alternative to the ability to move us that nature endowed us. Without sinking into the air, this does not understand. Therefore, for study! There are only two strict requirements for equipment: these are shoes with a hard boot and a helmet on the head. As it turned out later, it would be nice to have gloves, and also not to undress to shorts and a T -shirt.
To climb into the air is really on the first day of training. It was also with me, with the only correction that only three hours were allotted for acquaintance with the paraglider, and I did not come off the ground of my own free will. The dome in the sky, a gust of wind and frightening lightness in the legs. I instinctively twitch the control ends of the sling of the cool, and here I am again on the ground. The gap was only a meter, but the sensations as if you were holding the wind in your hands.
The third day, the most responsible. We jump into the senior car named Insignia Sports Tourer and again go to Etnu. This time we climb higher, and along the way I manage to note the difference of a larger car is significantly more noble in terms of smoothness and noiselessness in the cabin, but at the same time it is almost not inferior to the Astra on serpentines, as if there are no additional 300 kilograms in it. And here is the moment of truth: I stand at the cliff, I look at the town of Tsafafran and the Mediterranean Sea, and the king and the jester play in my head: I run up, jump from the cliff .... we lay one wing with Dmitry Gusev, we put on a double tandem suspension, we get up. At a short steep slope. The emptiness rings in the head, listen to the wind. A poke in the back, a short team went!. I am running with all my might, without analyzing the surface, the bushes are getting closer at the end of the slope.
From the side, the picture resembles mansion mantis, as one of the participants in the action joked. But at that moment I am not up to funny metaphors. And when there is very little left until the end of the slope, the invisible hand gently, but inexorably takes you by the scruff and lifts you up. I fiercely sorting my feet, but already in the air. The wind whistles in the ears, strong slings are stretched, we rise. Here it is a person’s dream of flights. Up, down, right or left in skillful hands, a lot allows a lot. Of course, the simplicity of management is deceiving. You need to be able to respond to insidious terms, correctly calculate distances and speeds. Anyway, to control the paraglider you need to have large ..., that is, strong nerves.
We decrease, almost tickling the heels of the roof of the houses and looking from above in the windows of the attic. Yesterday's training field no longer seems so big! We go out to the gliderative, I dangling violently, preparing to meet the soil on the run, as taught before the flight. But the next moment I recall the words of the brother of the rabbit: just do not throw me into a thorns bush!. It is there that we arrive on landing, slightly missing with landing. We hire the bushes, get up, shake us alive, intact, eagle! . It was then that gloves would come in handy, because to pull the thorns out of the hands, although fun, it hurts. With combat baptism, you will remember this flight for a long time, I hear the voice of my instructor Dmitry. Exactly, I remember, because for me the coveted door was opened to the sky. Later, going to the plane with a backpack behind me, I acutely felt that I missed the pendants, but the sling in my hands.
Dmitry Laskov
Photo by the author
Source: Auto.mail.ru
