|
      
| |
|
Lac de Castillon
|
|
Lac de Castillon
|
Mike Tomlinson volunteered to step on board today to keep me
in check. We had the dying embers of the mistral today, so the Gache did not
work too well, but on the plus side the thermals were starting to behave
themselves again. We had an interesting time between Auribeau and la Bigue,
scratching our way towards the crete de Liman, on which we arrived some way
below 6000ft, which was a first for me. Eventually we hooked into a
6-knotter to get us to 9500ft and away.
|
|
|
|
The weather to the east looked the best so I thought it might
be a good idea to fly towards St Andre les Alpes, one of Mike's former
haunts from the days when he used to jump off mountains with a hang-glider
on his back. The cloudbase rose to 11,000ft and we extended our circuit
towards Fayence under what appeared to be good cumulus but which didn't
deliver the lift we had been expecting. We didn't get much further than the
east of the lac Castillon but we did have a good view of Cannes and the
Mediterranean before returning back to the parcours.
|
|
|
North-east from the parcours
|
|
|
|
The cumulus to the north looked odd, mixed in with stratus
that dissuaded us from progressing further to the north, so we back-tracked
past le Trois Eveches to the montagne de Coupe at the southern end of the
parcours. The return to Sisteron was via the ridges of Vaumuse, Authon and
Jouere, just to prove to myself that thermals aren't always necessary to get
home.
|
Montagne de Coupe
|
|
|
|
Post-flight pizzas
|
Here's a thing: while we were enjoying our post-flight beers
at the Pegasus I saw a glider on final and couldn't help noticing almost
immediately that it was about 28 metres wide and had '13' stamped on the
back. Yes - Ed Downham and Robin May had arrived, having flown their
starship Ash 25 EB28 from the Wasserkuppe. That's in Germany. That's
around 800km away. That's genius, and firmly puts our 200km of
messing about into perspective!
|
|
|
|
KOOL by name...
|
|
