Yes, more wind - and I don't mean the effects of the beer, no Matron.
It's gusting 20-25kt NW'ly again this morning which meant a replay of yesterday and this time we'd fully understand what's going on. Yeah, right.
Steve Ell joined last night so we are now 11 strong - Jay and Henry Rebbeck, Dan Pitman, Ben Flewett, Ryan Priest, Andy Holmes, Geoff Tabbner, Mark Holden, Pete Hurd and myself.
It's gusting 20-25kt NW'ly again this morning which meant a replay of yesterday and this time we'd fully understand what's going on. Yeah, right.
Steve Ell joined last night so we are now 11 strong - Jay and Henry Rebbeck, Dan Pitman, Ben Flewett, Ryan Priest, Andy Holmes, Geoff Tabbner, Mark Holden, Pete Hurd and myself.
We released at 1000' above the field (3300 amsl) onto the Arambre again and enjoyed 4-6kts straight up to 5500' and wandered up the spine to the West. Here we stumbled into wave up to 12,000' amsl and congregated to negotiate the task for the day. Surprisingly this was relatively brief and we agreed on Mt Ventoux/Vinon/Logis du pin/Bardonecchia - roughly 450kms in total.
The run out of the wave down to Ventoux was fabulous - drop over the cloud marker and accelerate to 110kts, punch through the down wave and pull up into 8kts wave in front of the next cloud - and so on. We dropped down to 7500 amsl for the airspace and arrived on ventoux together in order to smoke the summit.
Reswarmed we headed along the Lure and had a good run arriving at 120 kts along the smooth ridge and moved out to the cumulus to climb to 7000' before heading for Vinon.
The cloudmarkers were behaving and some good climbs easily led us to Vinon and then on to Logis du Pin. An interlude to allow regrouping was all too brief and we moved on directly North towards the East of Barcelonnette. The summit of Cime de Bonnette also required smoking before we moved toward Bardonnechia in Italy. Dan found us a rather pleasant 11kts climb to 11,500' just before the turn and once again we were - surprisingly - together as a group. Of course, that couldn't last and the run back South saw me go way East, Dan get low in Barcelonnette and Ryan doing his own thing.
Reswarmed we headed along the Lure and had a good run arriving at 120 kts along the smooth ridge and moved out to the cumulus to climb to 7000' before heading for Vinon.The cloudmarkers were behaving and some good climbs easily led us to Vinon and then on to Logis du Pin. An interlude to allow regrouping was all too brief and we moved on directly North towards the East of Barcelonnette. The summit of Cime de Bonnette also required smoking before we moved toward Bardonnechia in Italy. Dan found us a rather pleasant 11kts climb to 11,500' just before the turn and once again we were - surprisingly - together as a group. Of course, that couldn't last and the run back South saw me go way East, Dan get low in Barcelonnette and Ryan doing his own thing.
Around Blayeul at 1800 the mood changed and the lure of
burnt meat and cold beer was too strong so we headed for home. Landing was once again excellent entertainment and saw Steve Ell check out the very far end of the runway - I hadn't realised it went that far until today.
Another splendid day under the belt - roll on tomorrow!
I'm not sure I need to know what's 'under your belt' Jon! Sounds great fun.
ReplyDeleteJim (Grounded for two weeks)