Judith's blog

The weather forecast was ok for the morning, but it was due to storm at lunchtime. Ruth and I got up early to get a good place in the minibus queue. We were up on launch early and got ourselves organised. I have learnt loads about programming my GPS, and am just about mastering the comp routes. From the development to the east we knew there would not be a big window to fly the task and we were briefed on the level system. Level 1: good conditions; level 2: caution; level 3: task is stopped. The task was a 29km elapsed time around 3 turnpoints. We had to fly west along the ridge to the first turn point at 4km, the fly to Orpierre, then to St Genie (the volcano), then home to the campsite landing.

I launched reasonably early but struggled to get a good climb. Eventually I got a thermal over launch as another pilot got a core close to me. Everyone else chose his core, which suited me fine. All those who chose him didn’t get up and when I got to the top of my climb I flew across to him and we climbed up to near base together. I was singing nah-nah-nah-nah-nah to those who chose him. Ha! I set of on the the glide to the first turn point but decided to fly very conservatively. There were people struggeling on the ridge and I didn’t want to be one of them, so I topped up in thermals on the way. Gillian was with me on the glide along, but left me for dust on her Sigma 6. I bagged the second turn point high and glided towards Orpierre. I topped up in the valley and could see the development over Orpierre getting big. A couple of pilots were getting high ahead of me and I could see that I would be able to take a good glide to the turnpoint and beyond. I would be in lift all the way and be at cloudbase as I left the area on the glide to the next turnpoint. Unfortunately, the task was cancelled as I hit the second turnpoint, so I didn’t get a chance to try out my strategic gliding. Read more»

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