First it was the late pull back of the south west monsoons and then came the low pressure moving from the Malay Peninsula to the Bay of Bengal and sneaking across the peninsula to affect Karnataka Goa and Maharashtra.

After creating flooding havoc on the Malay Peninsula it set back out to sea on its way westward with the centre shifting from the Andaman Sea to the southeastern Bay of Bengal with a “Formation Alert” for the potential building of a tropical cyclone of hurricane strength in the making over the Bay. It sneaked right across the peninsula and we experienced a fringe effect at Kamshet.  What this translated for us in Kamshet was – thunderstorms, huge cloud buildup and heavy rain.

Our Elementary Pilot courses continued each morning with us dodging the late afternoon rain to complete tasks and theory.   Chris and Beccie who had come over from Switzerland for both EP and CP courses completed the ep without a hitch but flying at tower hill with the amazingly fast cloud buildup big showers was the challenge.

Pilots managed to squeeze in little windows of flying and on one good day Vinya caught a big thermal and gained enough altitude to fly back home to Native Place from tower hill in one glide.

Although it played havoc for pg pilots as well as farmers who were about to harvest the rice paddy all of us who witnessed it will have to agree that it was breathtakingly beautiful and a treat for the senses. At Native Place we had an amphitheater location – with amazing views of huge dramatic cloud build ups that facilitated amazing sunsets over the lake, magical lightning patterns across the skies and impressive cracks and growls of thunder almost every evening.

Peace Bliss & Happy Landings

Astrid Rao

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