Fanas

As mentioned in my last post, Andy and I have been driving to Schiers in order to chatch the 1032 bus for Fanas. Andy had reserved to seats in the 1045 gondola. As expected quite a large number of pilots had the same idea...

today's thermal fcst (by https://www.burnair.cloud)

As can be seen, thermal activity started rather late, so we stopped at the restaurant for a drink and to enjoy the great view.

Pano at restaurant looking SW

As the 'Eggli'-launch has been still rather crowded, we decided to carry our gear about 10' uphill, where we had ample space to prepare - especially after everybody else had left ;-)

our launch site - Sassauna (2308m) in the background

Conditions on TO had been perfect for an easy fwd launch and the house thermal brought us quickly to 2375m, where Andy started the crossing towards Mottis and Chrüz... I followed him, although normally I prefer to have at least 100m more height for this crossing.

gliding towards Mottis

...where the usual thermals did their work and permitted an easy crossing of Chrüz.

climbing at Mottis (Andy -for once- below me)

after passing Chrüz, crossing to Jägglischhorn

Continuing East towards Klosters, where in the 'Madrisa' thermal I could climb to 2600m.

Pano above Klosters looking East-South: Davos

I continued towards Fergenhütte before turning around; conditions got steadily better and for the crossing back to Chrüz I have been able to climb to almost 3000m (2995m). I passed our launch site and continued west towards Vilan, where I finally turned and headed towards Schiers for landing. While passing the LZ at Grüsch I noticed that pilots landing there had almost no ground speed. So instead of landing at the official LZ East of Schiers, which under such conditions lies in the lee of the village and also has higher wind speeds, I landed on the luv side of the village. My gound speed at landing had been almost nil (maybe 3-5kmh)... After having packed my gear it had been a 20' walk back to my car where Andy was already waiting. Our Leeloos had performed flawlessly in these strong, but not too bumpy conditions :-)

With 3 1/4h and almost 60km, this has been my longest flight since March 2022 :-))