I know this is a bit late, but the last couple of days of our Portmoak trip delivered the wave that you hope for when you go there. I'll write a few words but let the pictures do the talking, all taken by Wyn from W7.
Thursday 23rd September - Portmoak.
Wyn in W7 was launched first soon followed by Pete in 230. A dream start to the flight when both of us contacted wave straight from the winch launch and climbed to around 14,000' right above Loch Leven.
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| Climbing above Loch Leven |
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| The view from c.14,000' |
At the top of the climb we decided to try and push North to get under the FL105 airspace, then West towards Creiff and the bigger hills. But all the time the cloudsheet beneath us was getting more and more solid. After a while West of the airway, with a 55kt wind and extensive cloud sheet under us we decided to head back. We managed to descend through the tiniest of gaps but that particular cloud layer was quite thin and we found ourselves back in Narnia once more.
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| Extensive cloud sheet. |
Andy(M), Eric(G29), Andrew L(SGC Junior) and Gordon(JDP), all had lots of fun and varying success finding the wave and running the ridges. And an added bonus is that it was warm and dry!
Thursday 24th September - Portmoak
The locals, having not bothered yesterday as "today will be better", set various tasks with 3 of the hardiest going to Tongue on the very Northern coast of Scotland, a 500km out and return flight. However, us mere mortals decided to just fly and see where it took us.
Again the wave was easy to contact in front of the ridge with initial climbs to 9,000'. We used this height to go under the FL85 airspace today which made for a much shorter track to the other side of the airspace, wind was only 40+ kts today! Wyn(W7) got to the other side at the first try but Pete(230) failed to find the wave around Perth and had to retreat to Portmoak to start again - twice!
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| Climbing through the slot to 9,000' |
Wyn then had a great flight with a sightseeing trip to Loch Earn then up to Pitlochry before meeting up with 230 at Amulree for an easy glide home.
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| Loch Earn seen through a wave slot. |
Again, the other North Hill nomads enjoyed the wave today to varying degrees with Ron and Guy(711) going around the Perth area and Andy(M) enjoying a great flight to around 10,000' locally, and with much less cloud today the views were quite something.
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| Descending for home. |
It was our last day at Portmoak so we couldn't resist a bit more ridge flying on the Bishop hill before landing and de-rigging for the trip home.
Sorry there's not more detail but suffice to say that we flew every day and there was plenty of beer, food and banter putting the World to rights in the evenings.
Pete S
