Christmas Flying at Kamshet
As I mentioned on the face book group the conditions for the past week have fluctuated drastically from strong winds blowing all day to weak no lift conditions.
I managed some long soaring flights lasting between 1 and 2.5 hours although the compression tried its best to keep me from taking off.
Visiting pilots Carlo and Nancy came in time for one strong wind soaring day and then the conditions changed face giving them the light wind, thermic conditions that they had wished for.
Witnessing them milk the conditions and make the most of each consecutive day was an inspiring experience and I simply had to share Carlo’s flying notes with you.
Carlo writes –
The first day we flew from Tower Hill. At first it was a little on
the windy side (we wanted some nice easy flying for our first
flights) but we enjoyed watching the ‘Acro’ brothers from Austria,
and others, showing off for a few hours whilst we para-waited. We
then enjoyed a very nice late evening soaring flight after the
wind abated (a little). Our first flights in India – hooray!
For the next days the wind was generally less, starting with a
soar able breeze at first with weak thermals, then the wind dropped
as the inversion broke and we got just what we wanted – light
winds and good thermals! This was the general pattern for the next
several days, with the winds getting lighter and lighter each day,
starting East in the morning and turning West by the evening.
We got lucky a few times and managed to get up in tricky climbs
(sometimes from very low!) to be rewarded with some lovely flying
and small XC flights around Kamshet. I was very lucky and managed
to fly around Kamshet on a couple of flights, getting to about
1800m ASL (6000ft), and then fly back to Sanjay and Astrid’s
place. On another flight I flew about 15km to the East of takeoff,
towards Pune, and then – seeing how built up it was in that
direction – tried to fly back again into wind, landing a few Km
short of Kamshet.
On Christmas day Nancy and I were thermalling together, climbing
up to 6000ft above Tower Hill, hollering “Happy Christmas” to each
other and laughing out loud. This was our Christmas present to
each other!
I also was fortunate enough to fly at Shelar, and had a beautiful
evening soaring flight enjoying the views with Henny, one of the
great bunch of Dutch pilots who were also in Kamshet at the same
time, also staying at Sanjay and Astrid’s guest house, Native
Place.
Carlo & Nancy
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Peace Bliss & Happy Landings all through the New Year
Astrid Rao