We put out a message on the forum last night to see if anyone fancied going somewhere different today, but after some discussion, Sant Pere de Rodes was ruled out and Oriol, Marc and Nani decided to go to Santa Brigida. We had to deal with some work stuff first, including an impromptu team meeting, so we were late out.

Since we were going to Santa Brigida, I decided to test fly the Axis Vega III that Nicky has lent me. On the way there the sky looked fantastic and Geoff was discussing how we would get back if we both went XC. On arrival, we found both Marc and Oriol in the bottom landing. They said that despite the cumulus, the cycles were well spaced out, there was hardly any wind and the thermals were weak. We went up anyway, taking Marc back up with us. Meanwhile Nani had launched and was maintaining, and getting above launch easily.

I got the Vega III out, fluffed a couple of launches and by this time the others (Enric, Marc and a bunch of Spanish guys I have never seen before) were getting really high. Geoff and I struggled for the first ten minutes until we got a strong thermal and that got us up and through the inversion. Once above, it was child’s play. You could cruise around and at one point I was racing Geoff out into the valley, checking my glide angle against his, and seeing how the glider performed with added speedbar. It was a glorious late afternoon and the thermals just got better, bigger and smoother. Really lovely to be in the air.

I really like the Vega III. It seems lighter than the Vega II. It certainly feels lighter on brake, so you need less muscle power to turn it smoothly. It’s also faster than my glider and glides better too (as evidenced by my landing much further forward on top landing than I would have done on my Vega II). My one and only negative observation was that it flaps a lot with big ears on and they take a big pump to get back out. Otherwise I was very happy on it.

Peter came out today and had his maiden flight at Santa Brigida. He flew really well.

See photos of today.

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