Learning to Fly

Mezzanine

Daniel, Guto, and I got up the ramp a little after midday. The forecast was for a perfect day of solid northeasterlies, but it had been blowing a light norwester since sun up. Nobody was excited, except for the fact it was the weekend.

We socialized a bit on the ramp until the wind dropped a bit and it was nearly 2pm. Although there was a solid inversion layer covering the southern side of the ridge, I didn’t want to sit on the ramp all day. Daniel and I unpacked and prepped our gliders. As we were doing so Fabinho took off and got high in a thermal just to the south west of the ramp. He seemed to have passed the inversion layer but I watched him head toward it without rising and then turn back.

I prepped my kit and waited for a solid breeze before taking off. Daniel was already ahead of me and had swung round to the south. I could see a couple of buzzards over the spot where Fabinho had got his height so I popped over that way for a look. It was pretty rough and I was only hitting bubbles and losing height quickly so I swung round to the south and followed Daniel.

I was a bit behind him and rather low but I could see him hitting the begining of a thermal ahead of me so I knew if I made it there I would be ok. Daniel started turning to the right as he entered the thermal and I could see a buzzard above him that was on his left. I guessed he could feel what was happening better than I but when I saw him hitting the descending air pocket I called out on the radio for him to head left.

I got to the thermal and it was turbulent and strong. I went up at 2m/s until I got to the level of the ramp, where it just cut out. I didn’t want to hang around where there was nothing as I was in a shadowy area if the wind was to pick up so I tracked along the ridge toward Cesar and a couple of other pilots who were closer to the city.

I found a few other messy thermals on the way and managed to keep getting back up to around the level of the ramp but never any more. It was frustrating, but I looked down and saw Daniel had never got back the height he had lost and was having to land just past the stud farm, so I knew I shouldn’t be complaining.

I got to the city and got another strong thermal there but after a couple of minutes it died too and everyone, there were about 5 of us, was forced to land at Moacir’s. It was a really rough landing due to the turbulence, but I saw others landing worse than I did, so I figured it was par.

I spoke to Fabinho afterward and he said that the inversion layer was cutting all the thermals off at the level of the ramp, but it didn’t exist on the western side of the ramp which is why he managed to get so high. I had always thought of an inversion layer like a ceiling, but he made it sound more like a mezzanine, much more localized than I had imagined.

Total flight time: 45mins