We, a group of 5 PGs, arrived around 11am at the LZ and made the first flight at noon. It looked promising and was cycling in nicely. Although all of us caught some lift and had an extendo, it was not yet quite enough to stay up for longer. With the expectation of a wonderful afternoon we drove up to launch again. But what the heck, by 1pm it had shut down and the air was dead - no wind at launch, no thermals breaking off. We launched anyway and sledded. Some of us already wanted to call it a day.
I decided to insist and started hiking up to launch to give it another try. After I was a bit more than halfway up, I noticed that Fred (who had just arrived) had launched and apparently was able to stay up. So I hurried up and ran all the way to the top (with my glider on the back). It was about 2.30pm and really had picked up, so I launched like 2 minutes after arriving. Flew out a little, and yes, I hit a really good thermal. A few careful circles first, but then I was quickly above the ridge and climbing fast. The vario indicated a best climbing rate of 4m/s (800fpm) on a 10 second integrator, not bad. I topped out at 1274m (4200ft), about 800m (2660ft) above launch. I flew for more than an hour, a really awesome flight!
Then I was in the LZ again and decided to gamble for the glass-off. So I hiked up to launch for the second time today and as I heard all the leaves rustling again speeded up quite a bit in the second half of the climb. Again launched right away and was lucky. Smooth and magic air lifted me up to 95m (300ft) above the ridge. Flew for another 45 minutes before the glass-off ended maybe 15 minutes before sunset.
Another great day! And this almost at the end of this golden November - oh I hope it's going to last for the next (long) weekend!
Cheers,
Marcel
That's around 500m (1700ft) above launch at Daniels. Yeeeeehaaa!
