Season change

Autum has arrived with a bang! Over the course of just one week the daily average temperature has almost halved, we've had rain, clouds, and some light snowfalls in the mountains!

Today the conditions looked like they might permit some ridge soaring from the hill out behind home so I headed up on a bike to check. A straight Southerly is best (but rare) as the main face of the hill generates a huge lift band way above and out the front of the hill but a SW (like today) should allow for some soaring near the top if it's strong enough.

I launched and soared up to a bit over 600m, which is not bad for a SW. I was flying with gloves and a ballaclava under my helmet but it was still pretty chilly. The cloud above blew away and the wind became too light for me to stay up so I landed up above the mud hut, however there was enough wind to ground-handle, so I ground-handled my way across the slope, up a gulley (some tense moments navigating between some of the big rocks and over a dead tree there), and back up to launch. Great practice for launches in tight & tricky places or conditions, and by the time I reached the top I was sweating and had removed a couple of layers!

Another cloud was approaching the hill and I launched again as the wind picked up - found the best beat to be from the top corner of the gulley above the little dam (above the mud hut) to the lighning-struck tree above the rock-brow pine plantation. Suprising, as this wasn't the steepest part of the hill, but I guess it's because it is a wide, smooth slope without trees and big rocks to disturb the airflow?
Anyway, as the wind dropped off again Nath was on his way up in the Landcruiser so I explored the (or lack of) further out and landed next to him on windsweeps to get a lift back up.

Nath set up and launched next (he's much better than me at scratching in light conditions) and flew around for a bit before slope landing down the hill a bit in the next lull. The truck makes for quick retrieves, you just bunch the wing up and stand in the back in all you flying kit. Jump out at the top, pull the wing up and you're away again!


Unfortunately the wind was just a bit too light to stay up. Nath landed a little ways down the slope and started ground-handling. It looked like fun so I flew down, landed next to him, and we 'walked' our wings back up the slope to the top. It was interesting 'flying' the wings through the turbulence behind some of the trees downwind - good active flying practice!
The wind never really picked up again, but we had fun trying to keep our wings in the air around the top of the hill. Eventually Nath relaunched and flew over windsweeps to land at the foot of the hill for some ground handling on the flats.

A fun day!