I wish I could tell you of awesome, almost endless flights over the plains and ridges of Central Turkey; alas, they have so far failed to materialise.
Today conditions were less windy, so the restricted zone just North of launch was less of a problem. But the airmass was also more inverted, and the climbs never REALLY took off, until they did and a very large CB developed some 100km SE of us, eventually blocking the sun out.
There were two schools of thought on launch today – one was to get off early, and make the most of what may have been. I don’t know how well that worked yet, as some of the guys aren’t back yet.
The other, which counted me, was a “wait and see” approach, and that gave us maybe 30km in an E to SE direction before the ground met us.
The thermals in the flatlands were weak and didn’t go very high, but it could still have worked if it hadn’t been for the CB developing SE of us.Maybe the early launchers got the better of it – let’s hope so.
I would personally love to be able to go earlier, i.e. to have all the briefings, lunchpacks, all the logistic stuff out of the way by, say, 10.30 am, so that IF the right day for a long flight materialises then we’re ready for it. Unfortunately that hasn’t been the case so far, but we’ll keep pushing!
I’ll write more when I know how the early launchers got along.
OK so all seem to be back now – maybe one Russian pilot made a little more distance than most, but it seems like 30-40 km was a good distance in the conditions we had. Lets hope it improves!
Pal took a few images from the air today, will try to upload later – now it is off to a restaurant for a late dinner before we crash, as tired as if we had flown 200 km!
Mads