Brieeeeeeeeefing! Guess what, Guys? No task. Obviously someone finds my lack of faith disturbing. Or was that Darth Vader who said that to TomTom...
Free-flying in Italy today, despite the Bora wind Meduno would be more sheltered, so I decide to join the posse.
Aaah, Meduno. My last trip there had been in May 2013 for the Italian Open, which after day 1 had been cancelled due to the torrential rain and flooding that continued throughout the week. Having been nick-named "MUDuno" because of this, I was glad to see that the Italian Flying Federation have since poured money into building a new landing field HQ with all mod-con facilities, and tarmacked the road to take off. However, the latter meant that we had to walk the last 1.5km. Easier said than done with 15km of lead! Fortunately a kind Belgian fellow pilot offered to carry my rucksack to the top and looking at him in a sagging heap, insisted he needed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation! Eughhhh, NO! Tahhh! Instead as a fair trade, I said I would stop telling jokes about the Belgians (English equivalent is the Brits telling jokes about the Irish) as a fair trade….honest...
Gentle valley breeze coming up the face
offered an easy launch. 50m above take-off we started to feel the Northerly,
and by the time we had reached 1340m, the lift was broken and snotty. Climbing a further 200m before leaving the ridge to find calmer air in the flats, pushing south towards the bridge lift was in abundance. Sucked up to 1700m in a steady climb albeit rough and choppy through sheer levels of valley and thermic conditions, I looked up to see some 30m above, wisps of cirrus above my head going in the opposite direction at a rate of knots! Aaah.. time to come down.
Spiralling and chucking the drag chute, managed to lose 600m successfully, before finding a blue hole near the ruined fortress and dropping 6m/s in empty air almost to the ground. Regardless of the lack of visual grace, I was glad to be on the ground.
Never flown the valley so fast, but with an Icepeak 7-Pro gobbling up the K's, one glide and you'd flown the triangle between take-off, South Bridge, and Terviso. Now I understand how the lead gaggles managed to fly so far, so fast and in one glide!
I can confirm that although flying in a Bora is possible, it is extremely unpleasant, and not an experience I will be repeating in a hurry.
However, it was great to get airborne again after 5 days of doing everything else apart from what I can here to do.
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