A very slow start yesterday, with soarable winds from around 12am, but few thermals and climbs to only a few 100m above take off. Many pilots chose to to ridge run, using up some of their 3 turnpoints, to get some distance in before conditons improved.
Best flight of the day was by Klaus Guenter Eberle who flew a distance of 99.9km landing on the souths side of the Gredos near Piedraslaves. In Second place was Paul Tomassi, with 90km , and who continues to lead the competition.
Three more tasks to go and the forecast is looking good.
A day with relatively low cloud base, and plenty of bomb outs around Villafranca and Villatoro. However, Paul Tomassi (CHE) managed the best flight by reaching the lake north of Avila then following the line of restricted airspace directly south.
Today, Thursday looks flyable, but a little more inverted, with less chance of going above 2500m.
A day with around 15-20km WSW at at take off with Cu and high level clouds comming across to weaken the conditions. Pilots were getting climbs to 3000m but the switch to more NW conditions in Avila made it impossible to push north around the airpace, so most did zig zags in the Ambles Valley
Winner for the day Urs Dubach with 92.5km
The GBL team (Great British Loosers), justified their name with a range of splendid bomb outs around Villafranca, only Paul letting them down by getting over the pass and making 48.5km.
Here is some good head cam footage of climbing out at take of by Adrian Leppard (GBL).
Good flying conditions with a cloud base of 4000 m – the task was Open Distance via 3 free choosen turnpoints. Day winner was Reynald Mumenthaler CHE with a flight of 15.8 km, closely followed by Kacper Kowalski POL in only 400m distance. Both pilots flew a completely different route. Kacper did a large triangle to the mountains and Avila and Back (then back again to Avila), whilst Reynald flew first to Avila and then directly south to Talavera. Best Women on 5th place overall Christine Miller with a flight of 91 km. Many pilots flew up to Avila and had problems to push into the NW wind. Most flew back against the wind for a short distance. The long flights were to the South across the mountains. Many pilots flew their personal altitude record.
A special day prize to Christoph Bessei who flew 75km on his DHV 1 Nova Primax.
Today, Monday, the thermal conditions are equally good, but the wind is too strong from the SW to fly.
I am on the ground for the next 8 days as Meet Director for the 3rd Piedrahita XC Open. Looks like I am missing and going to miss some great flying.
The pilots were off around 12.45pm, with winds increasing at take off quite quickly, causing problems for many on launch. Curiously, the wind eased right off around 2pm to 3pm, presumably due to the inversion breaking and the wind no longer being squeezed between the top of the mountain and the inversion.
Base was forecast to be well up near 4000m and there is fantastic Cu development to the West over the mountains. Pilots have headed in various directions, thought we don´t yet know how the winners are doing.
To check landing coordinates as they are landing you can get a google earth reference from the sms page on the online sign in sheet
Plenty of PBs for altitude today with a cloud base of 3800m. I flew tandem with John, an old client, now 70 and no longer flying who was in the area on holiday with his wife. We managed cloud base, but I landed locally, needing to get back to prepare the registraton for the XC Open, leaving the others to try an out and return to Barco. Nigel and Brian made it back form Barco, and John Kingsly landed just beyond Barco at a fiesta where they plied him with beer and food. Kevin and Gavin made it a good way back from Barco, and Carolyn flew many hours around the valley. All in all a great finish to a superb week of conditions.
Tomorrow we start with the XC Open. Weather is looking reasonable except for Mondya.
A truly wonderful day with a cloud base of around 3800m and a marked convergence over the high ground.
As it was blue in the Corneja (Piedrahita) valley, we decided to go over the back to catch the convergence.
Paul, Simon, Nigel, John, Bryan and Carolyn all managed to climb up in the convergence over the high ground. As there were clouds leading out to the Gredos peaks we flew across towards them which is a rare thing here. In fact I have never done it with clients, so it was very special to share that scenery with them. After spending plenty of time admiring the scenery of Gredos and the Lagoons, we decided to fly to Barco. Bryan and I who were right back on the mountains followed them along, whilst Paul, John and Nigel took a slightly more valley route. Paul dropped Nigel at La Aliseda, and made his glide to Barco. Unfortunately John missed a climb and ended up in a minuscule field, and a rather larger tree, though luckily was unhurt. Carolyn managed it back into the Piedrahita valley, and continued here flight to Barco.
Bryan who was with me ended up in a sticky spot near Lastra, landing on the hill near there. I managed to get out of that particular predicament, and flew on towards Barco, where I saw Kevin, who had taken a direct route there from Peña Negra, and was on his way back. I carried on to the outskirts of Barco and then flew home to Piedrahita, which was a little tricky in the N wind.
Probably the most scenic flight I have made here, and fantastic to do it in such good company.
Light NW winds and good climbs to 3200m today. Even the first fligth at 11am was good enough to stay up.
Brian, Gavin, Carolyn, Tony, Nigel and myself crossed the pass. On the other side it was N to NE below 2600m so was slow going. We had to take a line along the river, then back to the mountains. However, 30km from Avila a line of lift set up allowing us to fly pretty much without turning to the usual landing spot just outside the city walls.
The evening flight was excellent. I even managed to land back on top with the tandem to do the second flight.
More good stuff to come looking at the weather charts!
Sunday and Monday were a loss, but for an evening flight yesterday. Today, Tuesday, gave us epic soaring conditions with a typically post cold frontal start (overcast and cloud on the hill). Fantastic climbs and nicely spread Cus though not so high. Myself, Brian and Gavin went to the pass, then headed north to Tortoles (as the others had bombed and we wanted to stay local so they might fly again.). We got back to Piedrahita, then after an easy climb on the mountain flew to the Barco direction for some Kms, then over the hills to the North then back to the official landing.
Excellent evening restitution, and the rest of the week looking really nice too!
A fantastic day with Cus at around 3900m and the classic convergence cloud street. Martin was first off and hooked straight into a great climb with Kieth. I flew tandem with Robert and spent around 40 minutes surviving at the bottom of the Big Spine in scratchy lift. After eventually getting up we went towards the pass with Hans. By this stage Martin was already over the pass, having climbed there to 3500m, though Kieth had landed at the long bar. Hans crossed the pass to the south, and we went to the plateau near the antenna and made a good climb to 3400m. From then on it seemed to be cloud streets and easy flying , though we seemed to be out of phase with the good climbs. Martin was already over the far side of Avila and on his way back when we reached Muñogalindo. We both landed together (though we did not get to Avila first on the tandem) near the Quinto Pino bar.
A very slow start yesterday, with soarable winds from around 12am, but few thermals and climbs to only a few 100m above take off. Many pilots chose to to ridge run, using up some of their 3 turnpoints, to get some distance in before conditons improved.
