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Day 12 and Nevil races out the gate |
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Written by Greg
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Friday, 07 December 2007 |
Nevil still owes me a beer. Apart from losing his bet with me (a pilot on an intermediate glider), he got outflown by a girl! So he was wound up and ready to go faaaar. Before I'd even had my first cup of coffee Nev was angling for the runway. "Can we go now?" So I towed him into the sky while everyone else was standing around, and he worked slowly away downwind. The climbs were slow and only to 1000m above the ground, but he managed to get 27km out of it before landing.
Then a very unstable airmass came moving in from the NE. Deeper into the airmass we could see the first signs of thunderstorms. But it was strangely difficult to get away from the airfield, despite the clouds building overhead. By the time the pilots start to get away, the clouds are building too fast for comfort. There are stalks poking out of most of the cumulus clouds, and the clouds are mostly taller than they are wide. The wind is converging near us, the clouds are drifting in all different kinds of directions. And to the NE, a big thunderstorm cell was looming. After our experience with the gust front a few days ago, none of us were keen to push our luck. The pilots come back to land before things get hectic. The last pilot down has to spiral and use wingovers to lose altitude, and when he levels out at 100m he is going up again.
Surprisingly the sky doesn't overdevelop as badly as we expect, but it's still a bit more active than we would have liked. It might have been possible to sneak away to the south riding ahead of the most unstable air and dodging storm cells, but is it worth it?
The Swiss team have a similar short day, with a 40km out and return flight.
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