Fairly
late start but an Assigned Area Task (AAT) was set to the north varying from 110km to 330km.
We decided to set off later at about 4 o'clock whilst everyone else launched a
lot earlier. The thinking was that the sun was very warm and causing
thermals that disrupted the wave.
We launched into the
side of the low cloud coming in from the south (which made for some
spectacular views). The first leg was along this edge which seemed to
work (kind of). After the first TP we then had to head north into the
blue. This led to a massive death glide to the far side of the Cairngorms aiming for the downwind side of a massive hill
hoping for some hydraulic jump behind it. The sink and rotor certainly
indicated it would be booming... It was not. The climb back up to a
reasonable height was slow but possible.
The next 100ish Km was
in very still air with narrow bits of strong wave surrounded by strong
sink, by the time we got to the return leg the cloud had moved north and
we had a 50km run over 8/8ths requiring a very interesting descent through
cloud.
 |
| Returning late |
A very difficult but very rewarding flight, 8th for the day and 2nd for the height gain for the week. - Liam
