Week 6 - Day 6

Wow. The kind of day we’ve been waiting for and the result that we should have had from the very first day of our time here. Woke up to blue skies (How long’s it been?) but the obligatory area of 100% humidity was sat over by Yesa reservoir some 20km to the west. A stiff wind at 290/15 so rotor thermals were the dish of the day – for days with more ridge running high up, a more southerly direction is necessary. Slightly unsure about the best areas to find the rotor, we had a fairly in depth chat with Jose Antonio, which was to prove invaluable. We took off at just after 12 - the cumulus were very scraggy but this was to be expected because of their turbulent origin – buoyed by the production line of these Cu from Stage 1 now stretching several km’s downwind. We took a rotor climb straight off tow round the North facing edge of Stage 2, and made a long glide out to the next line of rotor starting on Stage 3. This delivered well, and we were able to make progress downwind. Catching sight of a large whirling Cumulus, we deviated slightly and caught a huge climb at 9kts – pushing out slightly into wind out of the edge of the cloud delivered a silky smooth wave climb along its vertical face, at an average of around 10knots and peaking at 17 knots up. Took the wave up to 14,500ft but with no classic lenticulars in sight, we went off for some sight-seeing to the East. We made it as far as Ordessa, hooking up with some typically strong Spanish thermals on the way back to the West, and we spent a lot of the afternoon with the highest peaks cut off by cloud, so the cumulus closer to the valley were explored. Transiting out towards Yesa at cloudbase, we managed to find a funnel shaped cumulus which allowed us to exploit the wave again – only up to 8,500ft this time. We were getting pretty wary of the ClearNav (fantastic system) running out of juice from the batteries and then losing the trace (battery down to 10.7volts), so made a nice fast finish out from the west, capping off an awesome flight of just over 6 hours. Made the whole week and the sleigh rides completely worth it. Forecast for Saturday is quite poor, but the soundings don’t look quite as bad as the predicted weather, so maybe there’s some flying on the cards.