Friday, April 8, 2011

The Glass Ceiling

I was a little late heading up the hill today and was worried things would blow out before I could safely launch. I was relieved (well, sort of) when I got up to launch and found benign conditions and around 10 pilots waiting. A few earlier launchers had sunk out and it was surprisingly gentle, with a strong inversion around 2000m easily visible.

In the air, things were fine but a little slow. Just over an hour into the flight I arrived low at Les Serres, below the inversion. I turned and turned; I could easily stay up but was continually bouncing my head against the glass ceiling. Les Serres is a fairly rounded peak, and the thermals didn't seem strong enough to get through the inversion. After 20 minutes of this, I found a strong core and it took me up. Things became colder, the sky was bluer and all of a sudden I was 1000m higher.

Decision time! I had Allos on glide - but I'd flown there twice in the last two weeks. Past Allos to Barcellonette? I would be too late to get a bus back home. Back to St Andre? Why not! 

So that's what I did. Above St Andre, the wind up the Verdon was really strong (I had long periods where my ground speed was below 10K). I arrived just above ridge height on the Crete des Serres, but the wind was almost 90 degrees cross and strong. I was worried that conditions could pick up further and decided landing was the sensible approach.

No comments:

Post a Comment