A great day away from the office.
The wave extended downwind of Mount William perhaps 8-10 wavelengths, enabling low launches (approx 2000 ft AGL) above Ararat town centre.
I released at about 3500 ft (2500 AGL) but struggled to stay in consistent lift so I flew south to a more promising looking area of cloud, but dropped down to 3000 ft before finding good lift in the quaternary wave.
Once I got some height I pushed forward into the next waves and got to the better lift of the primary. I got up to 24000 ft fairly quickly but once into controlled airspace, it got a little frustrating with cirrus closing in on the area. Wrong place wrong time really, as it was cycling all day. I left the area after getting to a maximum height of 24,600 ft.
I used the height to explore the area to the north west around Stawell, before heading back into the secondary at 7000 ft. Then i was just playing. I went back up to 17,000 ft, then flew into the primary, but the lift was weaker than earlier so when i reached 16,000 ft so I headed for home.
One thing I found interesting was how long it took to descend from that height. As an excercise, i wanted to see how long it would take to descend with full airbrakes and sideslipping and trying to stay in the trough.
A good day and my second diamond climb.
No comments:
Post a Comment