Day 3

Wait until it’s overcast before launching.

During the last two morning briefings we have been looking at the weather charts and the low pressure systems out to the north and west and each day we are told that tomorrow the weather will be bad. Then every morning so far I have woken up to bright sunshine and that well known phenomena in the Southern French Alps that it has it’s own micro climate and the frontal systems appear to be pushed north along the Rhone valley

At 11 o clock the sky looked very promising and any Brit would have said it’s time to Launch but in typical French tradition we wait another hour or so, by which time it’s now completely overcast with little sign of any Cu. The wind is blowing 15kts from the South so we throw the gliders into the air knowing that there will be one or two ridges we can sit on, unfortunately all the other Duo Discus drivers have the same idea and are in the same place.

There comes a point when Flarm is no help and I think that point was reached with 10 gliders on the ridge at Malaup. So we decided to move over to La Motte as there looked to be rotor clouds over the airfield. To cut a long story short after over an hour of searching we eventually contacted Wave in the lee of the Gache and this topped out at 8500ft. Merv in the DG took the opposite route crossing over to the crete des selles and finding wave near Serres. In the weakening conditions the second flights were never going to live up to the first but we did manage over two hours soaring.

Looking at the flight logs so far we have hade very interesting conditions and everyone has had flights of between 2 and 3 hours each day. I know some people will be expecting pictures with the blog, so tomorrow I will try and get my camera out when I am far enough away from the rocks.

Colin