When we arrived at launch there were already some students in the air, and some staying up. I was flying Alex's Addict2 for a change of pace and launched pretty much right away. Up and away to the clouds above, just below Archibald.
We had decided on a "task" for the day: fly to Ludwig, then to Elk, then top-land Upper Bridal. So after getting to cloudbase I headed east. Dennis, Robin, Martin, and Rob were right behind me.
Stopped a couple times to top up but flew to Ludwig without a lot of faffing around. There was a helicopter doing pickups between the huts below the Butterfly and the hydro plant at the base of the mountain, but low around 4-500m or so, so I didn't worry too much about him (Rob, on the other hand, said they were in his way!).
Back to the Lakes and now only Dennis and myself, the others were still at the Butterfly. Topped up at lower launch (saw a glider in the bushes next to the stump, either an aborted launch or a botched top-landing, not sure which) and straight-lined it to Gloria, where I had to sniff around a bit for a thermal to get me high enough for the crossing and back in case I didn't get lift over at Elk.
The clouds were dissipating and it was starting to stable out. It got so stable that on the way back from Elk, couldn't get high enough to top-land Upper launch, despite me trying for about 30 minutes at the Saddle. At this point it was around 6pm and I could only get 1350m or so, not quite enough. So headed out to land after watching the hoopla at launch with all the top-landers duking it out with the late-launchers. Make sure to clear your turns, people!
40 km OR, 3:36 airtime, max altitude 1572m (at the Lakes).
No comments:
Post a Comment