Omarama Day 5
We had the usual analysis of the previous days flying and todays tutorial was centering in thermals.
The same warm south westerly yesterday, but the high was a bit closer. So it was unlikely that the wind would be strong enough for any ridges to work, and wave might only be useable near the really high mountains. Cloudbase would only be around 8000ft giving 2000ft clearance above the local craggy bits.
Pete's turn to fly with G in DD today.
It was quite slow to climb away from the aerotow to get above the hills, but once there, staying up was fairly easy. 8kt thermals if working hard, 4kt if being a bit lazy and not keeping the bank on.
With lots of different local winds flowing down valleys and over and round hills, there were convergence effects everywhere. Some were easy to spot, just like Devon seabreeze fronts, but not straight-they followed the terrain contours, so it was very easy to get behind them- not the place to be.Others were convergences of similar airmasses, so no changes in cloudbase, the only way to spot them was to recognise a calm area on the ground with opposing winds either side- not particularly easy from 3000ft above the ground, but to G it was all too obvious.
Anyway, good fun and good lessons 3:44 and 250 kms.
We had the usual analysis of the previous days flying and todays tutorial was centering in thermals.
The same warm south westerly yesterday, but the high was a bit closer. So it was unlikely that the wind would be strong enough for any ridges to work, and wave might only be useable near the really high mountains. Cloudbase would only be around 8000ft giving 2000ft clearance above the local craggy bits.
Pete's turn to fly with G in DD today.
 |
| Lake Pukaki |
 |
| Narrow Gap between the Hard Stuff and the Good Clouds |
With lots of different local winds flowing down valleys and over and round hills, there were convergence effects everywhere. Some were easy to spot, just like Devon seabreeze fronts, but not straight-they followed the terrain contours, so it was very easy to get behind them- not the place to be.Others were convergences of similar airmasses, so no changes in cloudbase, the only way to spot them was to recognise a calm area on the ground with opposing winds either side- not particularly easy from 3000ft above the ground, but to G it was all too obvious.
Anyway, good fun and good lessons 3:44 and 250 kms.
