Now, while focusing so much on this thermal you also want to be looking around for other
thermals, other signs of lift. I'm straightening up into wind and the climb is
improving, perhaps we kind of drifted out of the thermal.
I've got up a little bit now
I'm only like a few hundred meters above takeoff not really high enough to go
cross-country yet so I just need to keep working. I can see some other gliders
climbing but as today is quite cloudy it feels like a very gentle slow day and
then I just carry on milking this little thermal rather than rushing off quite yet.
now I can see the gliders around me seemed to have all dropped out, it's like this
thermal is fizzling out so it's probably time to move on.
now looking
around, I'm looking back at takeoff where you can see Angelique
and ahead there are some
gliders climbing a little bit on the slope there
in front of me out in the valley is a nice cloud and see Grita under a cloud
the white glider, maybe too small for you, but underneath her I see a red glider that's
climbing reasonably well. I've got a choice: either go out in the valley for
the red glider or I come back to the hill. I'm gonna glide out. I can also
see from the landing field below, Ronald's got a little bit low but he's
got a core and he's climbing up so I'm gonna glide out.
It's much better to have gliders climbing up from below because you can reach above them
and it's much more likely you'll
actually get their lift, whereas if you glide underneath gliders climbing it's
quite possible that you've missed there climb, you've missed the boat.
Ronald's climbing very nicely from being quite low he's almost at the same
height as me. I'm guessing by the time I get to meet him he might even be above
me. so that was a good climb let's go! so there's Ronald in front with two vultures.
now quite often as you go into the thermal it can be a bit bumpy so expect
that. yeah, there's the little surge in the push as I go into the climb.
now I'm joining up ... here's Ronald and two friendly vultures.
Oh yeah there's the core look at that! there's a nice climb. well I've just flown
through it. now gone up to three meters a second. right so now we've got a climb
3.4 meters a second and it's really nice and smooth. Because the day is
humid (I'm guessing it's really quite humid today) the thermals seem to have
much softer edges than they did when we were in Roldanillo and the other days
where it was drier and the thermals were really punchy and quite turbulent at
times. this is just lovely! Like flying in England (on a good day).
brilliant! so what I'm doing
while I'm thermaling I'm mainly thermaling by feel, to be honest,
but I'm also glancing down on my
instruments to see my rate of climb
here I'm looking to see my rate of climb on my averager which is
set to 20 seconds and it gives me an idea of how well I'm climbing if I'm the
best bit of lift. by adjusting my turn and experimenting a little bit I can find
the best rate of average climb. I'm just getting up to cloudbase.
Can't turn quite as quickly because I've got a camera in my hand.
yeah, just gliding out. Often as you go out of the thermal you get
dropped, you feel your stomach drop a little bit.
okay there we've now got up to base and now we're ready to go cross country
I've already got the next cloud right in front of me - in fact I can glide to cloudbase.
that's the nice thing you can do sometimes I mean don't go in, always try
avoid going into cloud. sometimes you can get caught out.
When there's a little fluffy cumulus like this it's okay to just go around the
edge of it you know your airspace is clear
here's the view back at launch I think I'm gonna glide back we've no no hurry
to push out yet so now I'm going to glide back towards launch. below we can
see there are some glider climbing up, so it looks like this thermal is still working.
Ronald's having some fun spiraling down.
so now I'm coming underneath them and they're going up, like I said, I'm not sure I'll
actually get the climb. I'll hunt around a little bit. I haven't got birds around me
to show me the way. It feels to me like I've missed this boat, the climb has kind of gone
through, the cycle has finished.
there's a vulture climbing to my right towards Crispin and now Crispin is
climbing better than me. so yeah while you're flying around, when I'm flying I'm
always looking at other gliders trying to see who's doing best, looking for signs of lift
birds, cumulus clouds. there's something going around in this area, can I get it?
Am I gonna be in time, that's the question. now I'm getting that lovely
shove you get from the thermal. Got a gentle climb here.
days like today where it's a
little bit unstable and humid you have lots of little bubbles all over the place.
On days that are more stable you tend to have big gaps between the climbs and then more
concentrated strong climbs in concentrated areas, whereas on these like
more slightly low-pressure humid more unstable days you have lots of little
bubbles all over the place, so you often be thermaling in one
place and then not far away from you there's somebody else turning in
another little gaggle. Whereas on the high-pressure days you tend to have one climb
for kilometres around.
yeah this one's a bit weak, I'm going to go back for the
house thermal. if you look at the terrain in front you can see the road that runs
up the spur. The thermals tend to do a similar thing, you've probably heard the
theory about dipping the terrain in honey and then turning it upside down but here
you can imagine the honey running up that road
and then it pops off on the corners and the high points, the bumps.
there's a place where there's quite a reliable spot, then you get a house
thermal, like here.