Ozone Chabre Open - Day Four (no task)

We were a lot more hopeful today. The clouds weren't as thick this morning, and as soon as the 9:30 briefing was over we were sent off to a different launch in Sederon as it has a better North facing launch. An hour later we arrived at launch and our earlier optimism waivered - cloudbase was about 100 meters over launch and actually touching down in places.


Looks good - you go first!

It was still early, not even noon yet so we huddled for warmth & waited. A task was set back towards Laragne but we couldn't start until the clouds lifted enough to cross over the ridge to the first turnpoint. The skies cleared a bit so a start time was announced, but 5 minutes before take-off the task committee put us on hold. There was a huge dark cloud dumping rain on the task line. With this news we sat down & ate our creative lunches and watched the winds pick up on launch. The task was eventually cancelled but pilots were free to fly in the valley in front of launch instead of driving down.


Chrissi & I braving the June weather

Chrissi got a nice flight, but Derek & I waited a bit too long and the winds kept increasing and yanking pilots off launch, so we rode down in the warmth and luxury of the shuttle bus. Rumour is about a dozen pilots flew the task anyway, so if the weather ends up repeating itself tomorrow we're likely to have a similar task. We've only got 2 more days of flying here before heading back towards Munich and home to Canada...time flies even when you don't!