My Flying

The weather on Saturday looked really good while I toiled doing DIY at home. I was constantly looking at the nice clouds forming over Uitenhage and wished that the weather was going to look just as good the next day.

I was not to be disappointed.

Today we had a really good turnout of members and aircraft at the airfield. There was a light South-Easterly blowing which meant that the chances were good for some ridge lift.

I took the third winch launch from 08 and headed straight for the ridge. On the way there I found a small thermal, but couldn't get it to work, it did however indicate to me that there might be some more thermals in the area.

The ridge was working well and pretty soon I started to find some really good lift that turned out to be thermals. Soon I was joined by two other aircraft and all three of us were running up and down the ridge, but mainly exploring and looking for thermals. Pretty soon one of the guys got away and I headed over to his spot to catch the same lift. My climb stopped at about 4000 ft AGL; cloud base. From there I played, but not venturing too far downwind from the airfield, and landed a 106 minutes later.

What I really enjoyed about today was not only the fact that there was lift all over the place, but also being able to fly with other aircraft and to practice having them close by when thermalling and working the ridge. What was also really nice was that one of the guys was in the same type of aircraft as me and I was generally able to keep up with him. Launch plus airtime = 228,70ZAR.