Today was yet another surprising day at Montlucon! In the morning we were greeted with solid overcast skies. The forecasts suggested a wet airmass, which would only add more fuel to the overcast skies in the event that the sun managed to hit the ground. But then a switch clicked and the skies parted, and the ground heated, and we actually got a pretty solid day in. JP and I had a reasonable finish, in the top third and had a good day.
We had low expectations going into the briefing, to the point that the pilots were half expecting the day to be cancelled. Yet optimistic Aude suggested that we should get reasonable thermals to 1, meters and that it should be better to the east.
We received an Assigned Area Task and humored the organizers by dutifully gridding and being ready to fly. But then everyone retreated to the team tents and simply socialized. But closer to pm, it was time to head out to the grid. The air around us finally felt like it was heating up. And then Aude launched and she stuck just fine! And then the day rapidly started developing.
Looks like we will fly today! After launching, we reassessed the weather, noticing that the temperature was higher than expected and would stay higher through 6pm than forecast. This suggested that the 2 hour task was eminently doable, though it would require starting promptly after the task opened. JP and I positioned ourselves on the east side of the line, where the lift was higher.
Several minutes after the line opened, we spooled up under a cloud and charged out on course. We found good air under the clouds, bumping along at cloudbase. We took a northerly route, staying connected with the immediate line. We flew gingerly, stopping for We had no troubles going deep into the first sector, right up to the edge of the airspace. Coming out of the turn, we found a thermal marked by the 15m class. These watered up gliders seem to be in an orbit around the thermal, rather than in it.
