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Crikey - where did that
come from...?
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RW18
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Hopes were not high for today's prospective soaring exploits.
A strengthening southerly wind, a possibility of south-westerly wave and the
poorest visibility I have seen outside of a bowl of vinaigrette were enough
to dissuade me from all thoughts of serious cross-country flying. Having not
flown the previous day, due to most of the above plus a dollop of altocu
above the Sisteron cuvette, Wendy and I were keen to get airborne today in
220, if only just for the practice.
And so we launched from RW18 to Malaup, eagerly awaiting
an extended spell of getting battered by wind-sheared thermals. After a
couple of passes I managed to swing into a nice 5-knotter, which at least
got us some distance from the hill and marginally less turbulence. We then
moved west to the crete de Selles which, given the presence of St Genis just
upwind, at least gave the hope for some wave.
After being given a good thumping at Aujour, a push over
the col de Faye was enough to get us into moderate, but strengthening, wave,
which eventually peaked at a respectable 10,000ft. Great - let's go
exploring!
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Sisteron Town from up-high
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Well, we tried the lee of Charbre, which didn't work, and
then dropped back for some slightly weaker climbs between Charbre and St
Genis, but still no joy. Oh well - let's go back to Aujour and start
again...except that that didn't work either.
It looked as if the day was already over. Retreating to
Malaup, we climbed to about 7,000ft in (yet more) broken thermals, before
taking a small tour of the cuvette, via Jouere (not bad), Authon ('king
rough) and then Trainon (aah - much smoother). After a short detour via la
Baume, we decided to call it a day, and headed back to Valernes to position
ourselves for a LH18 circuit.
Just overhead the Sisteron-Nord autoroute exit at 4500ft,
we hit a 2 knot thermal, which built to 3 knots, then 5 and, as I turned
tighter, the lift simply grew and grew until we found ourselves being
catapulted upwards at no less than 11 knots. Well...no-one in their right
minds would let that one go, would they? At around 8000ft the thermal
dissipated but, pushing forward, we found a pleasing 5 knots of wave.
I have to say that this all came as something of a
surprise to us both. We managed to reach 10,200ft, but the visibility was atrocious.
We could see the ground directly below us, but finding the airfield, 20km
away, was pretty much impossible. We could also see that we were at the top
of the stable layer and were it possible to jump into the next layer we
would have been in clear air floating above a sheet of smoke. But I don't
think that's how wave works - one day, perhaps someone will explain it all to me.
Not finding ourselves able to top that, we did a gentle
let-down and landed, after a surprisingly reasonable day's flying.
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Lure (peut-etre?)
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After all this excitement, the evening
restaurant of choice was the Pizzaiollo in Sisteron town, just around the
corner from the Arcades in the town square. Recommended!
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