Week 1

Jaca Day 2.

When you see cumulus clouds over the valley at 9 in the morning you know its either very unstable or they are rotor clouds. Once we got to the airfield it was fairly obvious that there was a fresh northerly breeze  and the clouds we marking the position of the wave.

Launching started about an hour after briefing due to a slight delay with the new staff tug pilot. It was certainty an interesting launch with two people in the tug and a heavy two seater. We all towed to the North and generally released near stage two where there were strong rotor thermals that took us to around 8500ft.

It was an easy transition into the secondary wave system which was going up at around 8kts. Merv and Richard we already reporting strong climbs in the primary wave and had passed 15000ft. They eventually topped out at Flight level 195, but were still going up at over 6kts. As we went through 11,000ft we fired up the oxygen system, but after 5 mins we started to get low battery warnings from the mountain high regulator. We decided on a 12,000ft limit as it was around -20 at this height. After an hour and a half the cold started to set in and we descended back towards the airfield. The wind was now petty fresh from the North, but the circuit and landing were uneventful for us. 10 minutes later the other gliders started coming back and a number reported severe turbulence in the circuit and on the approach. 

We all decided that lunch was a good idea and we wouldn’t launch again until the wind had dropped a bit. It took around two hours for the conditions on the ground to calm down a bit and launching to restart. By now the snow showers we covering stage two and the tow into this area was one of the roughest I have ever experienced at Jaca. No one managed to contact the wave again, so it was just rotor thermals in the valley.

In the evening all of the expedition members plus the Booker pilots ventured into Jaca with the aim of eating at El Porton, but as we rounded the corner there was a distinct lack of light coming from the establishment. Anyway our next choice was open and certainly didn’t disappoint with an excellent 3 course meal plus wine for 17Euros.