After spending Saturday out at the Temora air show (more on that later), Sunday was forecasted to blow out some time in the afternoon.
We decide to head down to Lanyon in an attempt to avoid the already increasing winds on the north side of town.
By 11:30am Dave, Dan, Ed and I were on launch stuffing battens. Wind was still in the “nice” range by were ready to go. Dave launched first scratching a couple of hundred feet above launch. The air looked pretty rough as Dave faught to stay up. Ed followed with a nice launch but flew too far from the ridge to stay in the narrow lift band caused by the wind swinging around further to the north. This was understandable as with air this rough being near the hill is not an attractive proposition.
Dave and Ed slowly lost their respective battles with gravity and ended up in the bombout. Seeing this, Dan and I had to make a decision. We could launch now while the wind was not yet too strong but we may not get much more than a sledie, or, we could wait until the west facing ridge heated up but this would also bring a strong possibility that we may be blown out.
We decide to wait and are rewarded with a nice flight around the hill. The wind was too strong for us to head XC despite getting to 2000ft above launch. With the increasing winds I did not want to be landing in a rotor filled paddock by myself. So an hour or so later Dan and I land back in the bomb out.
After landing the wind increases significantly and we are happy to be on the deck.
Another fun flight with more personal goals met. This is shaping up to be a very exciting season.
