Bombing at the Burrs

Very busy at the Mystic launch today...


...a lot of Skyhigh pilots were up from Melbourne for the annual Skyhigh Cup, a novice-pilot-friendly event that was blessed with some good weather.
The forecast indicated that it might be a good day to try and push out past Mt Buffalo early, so once in the air I headed in that direction.
Launching was somewhat of a drama today, about the time I got a place on launch the cycles stopped coming up the face and for the next 25min we waited while light wind trickled across launch from due west... and due east... and a couple of times over the back from the south. Grrr.... The dust from a vehicle driving up to launch provided a clue as to what was happening - thermals were lifting off the marcus spurline alright, but well down the spur, not up close to launch like normal. Next tiny puff from the right sort of direction and I was off - not a great launch - and just kept flying down the ridge. Sure enough, well past the point where we usually climb out I found a 2m/s climb, and was soon happily beeping my way up towards the clouds and watching all the wings below me that had launched once they saw someone going up.

It was nice being in the air with plenty of other wings...
... and the flying wasn't hard initially.

Heading into Little Buffalo it got harder though - I couldn't find a climb and ended up heading down to land at the Burrs. However, I got a great low save and slowly climbed my way up out and away, only to loose all that hight trying to push on to the next ridge line. I got there, but with scant height to spend looking for the next climb and as all-too-soon faced with the option of flying back down to land in the Burrs or continuing into the next valley (small, no landing options at all, no roads). There MUST have been air going up somewhere in the next valley, but I wasn't going to bet my wing, a long walk out, and a tree landing on finding it...
So I headed back to the Burrs and didn't get another low save. Rod very kindly drove me back to pick up my car.


As Will Gadd says, "Some days you're a rock star, some days you're just a rock."