Last good thermal?

Nath and I weren't able to get to Bright today until 4pm - and once there heard from other pilots about lumpy air and an inversion layer around 1,800m. But that's a whole lot better than not flying, so once I was set up and felt a cycle coming through I lobbed off and headed to the left of launch and was soon circling in a light climb out the front of the ridge.



[The dip in the RH trailing edge of the wing was caused by a knot in two of the brake lines on the upper cascade - vigorous pumping didn't remove it and it didn't cause any problems ]








Nath launched soon afterwards...









...and we pleased to find that the air had become lovely and smooth and the climb slowly improved from a 0.5 m/s to a steady 3 m/s up to 2,100m!! Great fun thermalling together! We headed towards Apex Tower, crossing over the town of Bright on the way. I led out and found a fairly sinky line and not much lift along the ridgeline around the tower - Nath saw this and wisely turned back to Clearspot, where he connected with another climb and topped up his height. Meanwhile I was scratching around Apex, gaining height and losing it as I blundered around trying to center the lift. I never really figured it out - dunno if I arrived at the end of a cycle or if it was just small bubbles of lift but after awhile it was time to leave the ridge so I headed downwind towards Little Mystic. I wasn't high enough to fly into the bowl, but gained a bit of height in a few circles over the lower part of the spur before falling out of it into sink and valley wind, followed shortly afterwards by landing in the landing paddock.










Nath made it back to Mystic and ridge soared for half an hour or so before he flew down and landed.

Cold fronts, cold wind and cold rain are forecast - I wonder if this was the last good thermal of the 07/08 flying season?? It looks like we're about to turn the corner into Autum.