After a day's work, I checked the wind 'balise' on the summit (15-20 km from the west) and headed up the hill around 5 pm. By the time I arrived on the summit (around 1.5 hrs later), the wind had changed - it was stronger and from the SE. Fortunately St Andre works more or less from E to NW, so it was really just a matter of using the correct launch. And there I found a couple of pilots from Nice that were a bit intimidated by the wind strength. I told them it seemed fine and it would probably get less strong (as the anabatic effect weakened).
I launched; just as I expected as soon as you got away from launch the wind was much less strong. While it was easy to stay up, the highest I got was only 300 ft over launch. I radioed to the pilots on launch that conditions seemed reasonable and they joined me in the air. Later on, as the wind weakened, the local school arrived with a bunch of students. Most managed to launch ok, quite a few were able to soar but a few were left struggling on launch.Since I've really not being flying that much, I stayed up until it was starting to get dark. As I flew out to the LZ, a group of shepherds were moving their sheep from the LZ to a little holding pen. The sheep are about half-way through a 8-10 day journey from near the coast to the high pastures near Allos. The shepherds were sitting down to their evening meal when I passed them. Life for the shepherds has become harder since the re-introduction of wolves in the area.
More pics at http://picasaweb.google.com/DMMullin/StAndreFlight03June2010#
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