Refresher Course

Mistral 1 Windsock 0

The last 10 or so days have been very windy - mostly mistral weather, but also some showers (a strange combination). Although I've seen a few wings in the air, I haven't tried to fly. I tailor what I do to the weather, so instead of squeezing a flight out of a poor flying day, I go hiking or cycling. I sometimes miss flying, but it is a lot less frustrating.

I like to feel "current" with my flying; when I see a good forecast, I want to be confident I can use it. If I launch straight into a strong thermal, I want to be glad, not terrified. So once I go 2 weeks without a flight, I'm happy to accept a "practice flight". The forecasts were calm but mediocre today and I was happy to sneak a late morning flight. 

Showers were forecast for the afternoon, I had work to do, so I knew it would be a short flight. Launching towards the end of the morning was fine - it would allow me to use the 'standard' LZ before the day became too thermic. It wouldn't be easy to stay up - so better practice than launching at 1.00pm.

And that's how it worked out. I arrived at the south launch around 10.45 just as a group of pilots launched; a few of them got above launch but only for a few minutes. By the time I was ready to launch everyone had landed; I struggled in messy thermals for ten minutes before getting well above launch and boating around. Testing, but not too testing. After around 45 minutes I headed to the LZ to beat my noon "sensible landing limit" (the LZ can be very turbulent on a summer afternoon).

Just over 3 hours door to door, some decent exercise hiking up and an interesting 45 minute flight. Time for a quick lunch and then back to work!