A more than usual relaxed start as a quick moving trough line brought a light shower of rain as we prepared the gliders and appeared to deter everyone except the Lashamites. It was John P's turn to fly with Roger leaving Julian with a full day's soaring in the DG, and G to fly John C and Tom. The top cover associated with the front had a beneficial effect as it damped down the thermals which allowed the south easterly wave to set up from around 1500'agl if you were brave enough to try! Julian released from tow early and climbed to 6000' then was entertained by the antics of a rotor climb in the lee of les Monges with large variations in airspeed and the stick and rudder moving to the limits normally only seen in the preflight checks. It was strong and turbulent with the gusts opening the undercarriage doors in quick succession that almost sounded like a round of applause. Moving to the east a strong smooth climb was found that transitioned into the wave that Julian and Merv rode to 16500 and then embarked on a tour of the Mercantour national park with their confidence boosted by being 12000' above return glide to Sisteron! Later Julian returned to where we started and climbed to the ceiling of FL195 aborting the 4 kt climb to stay out of the airspace. Having not circled after the intial climb into the wave about 4 hours ago the wind readout was static on 149/24 we decided to head to the north west as we were too high to go back towards Sisteron/Serres as the air space is much lower. North West seemed a good idea at the time until we headed for home with 8000' in hand and 30k to go (required glide ratio of 7:1 to destination) at 80kts we discovered that we were only achieving 8:1 as we were now heading into wind that was clearly much stronger than 24kts indicated. Slowing down to best glide, the ratio improved to 12:1, Roger subsequently told us that the wind was around 40-50kts. Roger and John P also climbed to FL195, Tom and John C got to 14000' in seperate flights with G. All the high fliers, returned with cold extremities especially the feet. Nobody else launched on this initially uninspiring day but those who did had spectacular flights in the wave.
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| FL195 View to the south west |
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FL195 View to the east
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John C was delighted that the rest weren't interested in dinner
and Morag was thinking what to do with the utensil...... |
Blimey! Well done. With a strong south-easterly I would have stayed in bed!
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