Two days in the air

Finally, after a week of waiting (and sightseeing) I got in the air yesterday and today.

Yesterday was a great day - and the first flight with my new V7 vario. A lot of tweaking still required there. But the day was good enough to get across to Bryce Canyon and review the sights we saw a few days ago from the ground. The perspective is certainly different!

This shot is from about 16,000ft. You can hardly tell there is a canyon there at all. Max cloudbase was about 17,000 but it varied a lot from place to place - with some areas being as low as 12,000. Believe me, that feels low when the ground is between 8 and 10,000!

Today I tweaked the vario (added a cruise climb switch and changed some settings) and it is a big improvement but I still don't trust the speed commander. The day started very weak because the wind was blowing down over the ridge to the east of the airfield.

Although the sky looked great, none of the climbs on our side of the ridge were connecting with the clouds. The other two pilots gave it away after being unable to get any higher than 11,000 (scratching the slopes) but I took a gamble and a long glide to the western side of the valley and was rewarded with a climb straight to 15,000. I then raced a cloud street to the south and back, and played chicken with the storms until being outmaneuvered by one which set itself up over the airfield. As  I glided in to land a bolt of lightning made me revise my plans and I turned tail, heading for the airfield at Cedar City, clear of any nasty weather. But I changed my mind again and decided to wait it out. While I was waiting I snapped this shot of Cedar Breaks, the amazing natural amphitheatre that we visited a couple of days ago.



In the end I landed at 6:30 after the storm had drifted away, dropping the wheel and pulling full brakes from 15,000ft.