Slui Roy was busy last night. Keith, Tony, Si, Ste, Ean and Chris all did extended top to bottoms. I was late as usual. Hiking up just as Ean took off I could see it was fairly buoyant, but down in the valley the smoke was going straight up. Not a good sign, but after so many nappies I was very reluctant to go down. On take off there was a breeze and a crazy cirrus sky showing things were on the change. Took off and scratched to about 10M where everything changed.
The lift became stronger and a considerable head wind became apparent the higher I got…so much so I got the GPS out and found my ground speed was down to 3km/h…strange. Decided to try and get onto Greeba but had to give up half way there as the head wind seemed to be from the SW, and it was taking too long. Floated around a bit more, Dropped my GPS! and watched it fall and fall and fall (should have got a flight deck!) and eventually decided to go down and land before it got too dark. It had been windy all day, but calmed down in the evening. I think this calm was only low level and up higher it was still very windy, almost at the limit. Maybe the cold wind was being pushed up over the warmer calm air producing the lift…..dunno. nice flight though.
Meeting this Thursday at the Farmers.