Practice Day...

You don't really expect decent flying just before the winter solstice. But today's forecast looked very promising and I had hopes of a mini-XC. The one caveat was the possibility of high cloud - even in St Andre, that's asking a lot of a December sun.

As I hiked up, cloud cover increased. There was no wind at all until the last 50m to launch. Launch was very cold and deserted, with a brisk south wind. There was at least 7/8 cloud cover (cloud base was about 400m over launch)  and it seemed like a sled ride was the best the day had to offer. 

It was too cold to hang around, so I wolfed down my lunch and got ready. I flew off the S side and found just enough bubbles to maintain. I persevered, hoping the sun would break through and transform the flying. I gradually worked up to 100m above launch but no more. The flying was entertaining, but - without the sun - it was impossible to go anywhere. 

I was pretty cold - another problem when there's no sun - and landed just short of an hour. A little disappointing, but good practice for better days...  

A very compact tracklog.