Clouds plus a Tandem

Lots of people out flying today, nice clouds and light wind. I went for a XC with Fred Gungl on his Tandem - so I got to shoot as much film as I wanted.

The clouds were weird today - we would fly under a nice darky and there was no lift, you could see cloud forming right above you, even pieces of cloud sticking down lower than base and churning upwards but search as we may - the lift just wasn't where you would expect it to be.

So we came up with a theory (ok, maybe it was Fred's ...) the scruffiness in the clouds were being caused by a layer of strong wind up around base and the clouds were being blown away from their sources, we tested the theory and found the thermal source on the very upwind edge of the clouds, even out away from the cloud.

So the cloud was being blown out in front of it's thermal but it was still condensing and so showed all the signs of lift...

The view from base at 2200 meters was sweet, we were now able to connect the dots and do a big lap of the valley and "seize the day".

Ciao!