Omarama Day 1- The Mackenzie basin seems to have a micro-climate of its own, and does not follow any of the televised forecasts. But CFI Lemmy seems to make a good interpretation of it each morning.
The forecast rain took a little longer to clear through than expected. So a morning of introductions and briefings on wave transition and flying safely in the mountains was followed by launching after lunch.
This proved to be a bit too soon, as the first two launches were back on the ground fairly swiftly having found nothing to stay up in at all! After a delay of about an hour launching restarted.
Having been one of the earlier launches Pete and Gabriel were now at the back of the queue, but this turned out to be an advantage as the initial climb away from the site became easier.
We were flying Duo Discus xL "QQ"and were towed straight out into the gentle westerly, to some scrappy looking rotor thermal, this then allowed us to climb high enough to push forward over the first big ridge at about 5000' (Omarama 1380' amsl). Ridge and thermal got us higher again, for another jump forward to a really big Cu cloud, which in turn allowed another jump into wind, into the Ahuriri valley which looked as if it was a wave gap in the carpet of cumulus.
Tracking along the line of the Barrier Range provided 8 to 10 knot climb to just short of 18, 000', whilst still climbing at 4 knots boredom set in and we set off for a high altitude tour of the southern lakes, until we thought it time to go home, last to land at 19:45 after a flight of about three hours.
Jill's turn tomorrow!
Check out Pete's flight on OLC
Check out Pete's flight on OLC
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| Climbing High in Wave |
