St Andre Scratchfest

The 11th of November is Armistice Day in France and a public holiday. St Andre is one of the few flyable places at this time of year, so eager pilots come from all over. It was a S launch day (always a bit trickier at St Andre) and, after my hike up, I was surprised to find only a handful of pilots there. Half a dozen wings were in the air - roughly at launch height - and there were many wings in the LZ.

As I got ready, more and more pilots arrived and suddenly launch was quite crowded. I launched and was immediately followed by several pilots. After 5 minutes I found a decent thermal and got 300m over launch. Things seemed very comfortable but I decided to wait for cloudbase to rise a little before going XC. 

But the weather didn't cooperate. The day was clouding over, and the thermals didn't last that long. As the lift diminished, more and more pilots took to the air. I soon found myself scratching in a tricky mix of ridge lift and thermals with an awful lot of pilots. To add to the problems, someone in St Andre was burning vegetation and - with the low winter sun sometimes poking through the clouds - visibility was poor. 

I'm the blue wing top right (Stephane from the LZ)

I flew pretty conservatively, avoiding the worst of the crowds, until the skies cleared out a bit. At that point, there were really no thermals to speak off. Weak ridge lift was the only game in town - a pleasant change at St Andre! I'm almost at the top of the weight range on my new wing, so I was please to see that it performed well in these conditions. 

After nearly 2 hours I headed to the LZ and joined a lot of happy pilots. Someone counted over 60 wings in the air when traffic was at its worst. I talked to a pilot from St Hilaire; his club couldn't find accommodation in St Andre and they were staying in a Gite in a neighboring village. 

A few pics - all taken before I got into the heavy traffic!