I'm visiting family and have to do some business, that's why I'm in Switzerland for a week, including two weekends with possible flying. Well, one has to know that November is the worst time in Switzerland for all outdoor activities, with often little sun, short days and plentiful fog and rain. On the other hand, they had a very nice autumn with three weeks of good weather in October, and fortunately it was going to last for at least the first day of my visit. Clear blue skies, all day sunshine, mild temperatures and very little wind was predicted.
Corinne picked me up at the airport and after quickly dropping some gear at her place we were off to fly in Flims, some friends were coming, too. The village is at an elevation of 1050m (3500ft) and we took the chairlift to the middle launch called Naraus at 1850m (6070ft). The cable car to the upper launch named Cassonsgrat at 2650m (8700ft) was not running since they were busy with revisions for the soon-to-come winter season. I opted for a hike to the top to avoid a struggle with a strong inversion that was predicted around 1700m (5580ft), but my friends suggested that we fly to the upper launch, rather than hike.
Well, it was around noon, they felt hungry and wanted to have lunch in the restaurant next to launch. I found this idea crazy, especially since some gliders already launched and were able to maintain their altitude. It was hard to enjoy lunch when the first pilots climbed a couple dozen feet above launch, but my friends told me to be patient. Well, in the mid-atlantic such patience can ruin your flying day, since the good conditions may be gone as quickly as they appeared, but apparently there is not too much of a danger in this regard in my home country. But I also need to mention that during the XC season, they try not to miss any second of thermal activity.
After more than an hour of relaxing lunch (for me: eager waiting
), we proceeded to launch. It was obvious that the conditions had only improved, since some PGs were circling already more than 200m (670ft) above us. I didn't wait very long and took off and was immediately able to hook into a thermal coming off the edge in front of launch. It was still fairly weak, I had to struggle, but got 100m, 200m and finally 300m (1000ft) over. The area behind the launch is comparably flat and thus quite sinky. The way to get higher is to cross that plateau to a huge rock face behind, that was under full sun and is known as an excellent thermal collector. I made a first try, but got too low and had to turn around. The second try was better, I managed to drift back in a thermal, soared a few passes on the face and once I was above, whew: powerful lift of up to 5m/s (1000fpm) let me climb to 3050m (10'000ft). Although one has to say that the face regularly produces explosive 10m/s (2000fpm) hammer thermals in spring and summer, so the conditions were actually light for the place. It still required some attention to keep the wing open and I was not unhappy that my experienced friends told me that it was fairly turbulent for as light (you know, everything is relative ) as the lift was. So I flew all over the place (i.e. did what Tom usually does ) and after 2.5 hours, we all toplanded at the Cassonsgrat (upper) launch to meet 3 poor souls that had just hiked up to launch there. We enjoyed the sun, the nice temperatures and the absolutely fantastic view for a while and then relaunched. It finally went magic with widespread, buttersmooth lift and we watched the sunset from the air. After another 1.5 hours of flying we landed down in the village of Flims, just before the darkness set in. What a beautiful day, what a beautiful flight, definitely among my 3 best ones! And I don't think that there was a much better way to celebrate my 1-year anniversary as a PG pilot than with a flight like this! If you want to see some pictures, direct your browser to http://stat.ethz.ch/~dettling/flims.html. Enjoy! Just FYI: I flew Corinnes wing (just for fun) and a more sportive harness of a friend (for even more fun).
Cheers,
Marcel
