Whilst I was doing the airport drop off and collection (Sunday 26th)the group had a goal to Avila….and back some before a land by time of 5.30. Bob, on his lightweight Gin A class glider made it over the pass with a new PB of 42km. Richard, more of a veteran on his D class made it someway back from Avila.
Excellet evening flying as well.
Most of us went west towards Barco, Chris making the 40km O&R. Hans went the other way at flew 49km to the Avila direction.
Today no storms, but yesterday just local flying due to the large Cbs later in the afternoon.
Very quick Cb development at launch with showed rain in the valley before 12.30. Myself, Nigel and Faisal choose not to fly, but the others were off early enough for a quick safe flight down or away towards Barco. Richard however carried on, escaping to the north away from the rather dramatic electrical storm near in our valley. In my opinion not a sensible day to fly paralgliders XC. However, he did show what they are capable of doing even in such adverse conditions!
Richard’s flight
We set a goal of 90km, but the conditions soon became too problematic with large congestus forming behind launch and to the south of the Avila valley. Most of us flew around the valley , taking an early landing before things got too exciting. Richard, somewhat more intrepid than the rest of us went over the Pass, keeping ahead of the deteriorating conditions to make 71km.
A high quality thermal day with tops around 3200m and with very little wind. Most of us did circuits around the valley, those doing most being Faisal and Nigel with over 5hours each. Here is Faisals track below.
Faisals track
Faisal 1
Faisal 2
Another week over and good flying every day of the week. Mostly very light winds with few days with convergence with which we were able to utilize for long easy XCs. However, we all had plenty of flying, though mostly triangles between the Villatoro and Tornavacas Pass. We did get 2 Avila goal days however.
Ian continues to amaze me. He has been coming out to see us every year since the 90s and normally only gets to fly this one week of the year with no flying back in the UK at all. He also has only changed his equipment twice in that time. So, on old B rated gliders he goes straight into the big conditions and regularly knocks out good XCs, inlcuding a 145km goal flight last year. Below are some of his triangle flights from the last few days. This year he is here for 2 weeks for the first time and his airtime for the first week is I think already well over 20hrs. A little caricature painting I did of him about 3 years ago also below.
Ian
Strong smooth climbs to over 3000m but as the clouds were forecast to become problematic we stayed local in the Piedrahita valley. Storms did happen around 6.30 so no evening soaring.
Yesterday a pleasant flight towards Barco with the whole group landing there or a bit beyond. Some, not in our group made 100km. Today a fantastic day with easy climbs to the cloud base at around 3400m. An easy run to Avila(55km), though a little N there low down. We decide to land (Nigel, Ian, Hans and I) and were back for the evening flight with the others. I imaging pilots who persisted would have done over 100km as the convergence was well marked by Cu to beyond Segovia.
It seems we have been kicking most of the last month with an Avila flight on Mondays. Today only Hans and I arrived with initially climbs little above 2500m. many of the group decided not to cross the Pass with the low thermal tops. A very nice evening flight for all. I made a tandem flight with an 81 year old local.
An excellent forecast, but we did not get going untill 3.30 when the wind started to come on correctly. Unfortunaley a number of HG’s were damaged in dust devils( Many HGs rigged for a comp). strong climbs to 3800m and Cu. Raging convergence along the sierra de Avila. After Avila the wind more SW and Dave took a more northerly route. I went more towards the SE to get a better wind line and at the point almost of the final glide found that all pilots were down, so rather than flying to the goal I went back to Villacasting for a better retrieve.