Stage Flypink 2025 - Day 0

2025. április 06. - Glidingirl

This is not a joke, glidingirl blog is back again... after 5 years of break! It would be very hard to list all the events which happened since my last blog post but with the upcoming new stories you will get slowly all the insights again to see where I am now in my glider pilot journey. On a sunny Saturday morning on the highway in the direction of the airfield it just came to my mind: how nice was that Hungarian tradition to write about our flight experience, I miss it! So why not to start it again, and now in English - just to be able to share the love of flying with more people...especially because since 2020 so many things changed, I live abroad, I bought my own glider, I found many new friends in the gliding community.

March 26th, Wednesday, Calcinate del Pesce, Italy: Finally, day 0 of the Stage Flypink (for Italian woman glider pilots), I am so excited! I woke up around 6 am, first things first: the forecast did not change, it will be a magnificent day! I wanted to rig my glider the day before but I could not because of the first spring storm...so let's drive to the airfield as quickly as possible! Around 8 am I find two people to help me so we rig the glider without significant difficulties. The mornings are still cold, the grass is very wet so after this first exercise I need to change my shoes. I prepare everything carefully, two batteries, parachute, Kobo (XCSoar) for the navigation, my Insta360 camera, some food (always salty, especially because in Italy breakfasts are usually sweet - and this is already strange for a Hungarian:)) and two little fruit juices to drink. I bought last year a pair of Skyboots for the cold spring days and finally these are the days when they are really needed and they save me from freezing.

When everything is ready for my flight, I go around to help the other ladies: we prepare for the take-off the glider of Liana as well and we welcome the other stage participants at our airfield. It's been a year that I haven't seen Stephanie and Mariella! As Wednesday was day 0 of the stage we did not receive a task so I could decide on my own where to go. Let's try Crodo - Lecco!

There's a smile stamped on my face: I am so lucky to fly this day, the conditions are really good. Campo dei Fiori, Monte Nudo, Sette Termini, Lema, Tamaro: the way to the north is easy-peasy, enjoyable, I do 2850 m before crossing the lake (Lago Maggiore) so I have no worries. The difficulties start on the other side of the lake: there is so much convective energy that under the nice cumulus near Albergone I find rain and snow. But more or less it works, I continue to circle in the rain. In order to enter to the Cento Valley, I would like to do at least 2800 m again (it is possible) but I lose some time here around the rain. I feel myself a bit low around 2100 m behind the Mt. Limidario but the persistance pays off: I find myself at 3100 m, let's gooo.

There are many cumulus on the sky, the crossing of the valley is not difficult at all, I just follow the cumulus. I arrive to the last mountain near Masera Airfield: I do again 3000 m and I head to the north: spectacular mountains with snow under me and I only need to follow the ridge. It is a bit late, let's start to return, I am 51 km from my home airfield (and I hope I can do the leg planned in the direction of Lecco).

I decide to cross the valley again and continue on the southern side - just to see how it works. Normally I never passed here because there is a national park under me where the obligatory altitude is 500 m AGL but today I have no worries - I am really high. I do a long glide until Monte Nudo - and I see that the conditions are getting strange, the clouds are under me, the visibility is poor especially in the direction of my home airfield. I try to call the home airfield and I get to know that there is a thunderstorm arriving there, so they tell me to land. I need to open the airbrakes at Campo dei Fiori, I directly go the airfield. The view is scary and spectacular: the last rays of the sun on the runway and a dark blue-purple cloud mass behind. I am worried: what will happen after I land? I try to remain focused during the landing even though I hear in the radio that they talk about flashes of lighting. I successfully land, I feel already the wind of the storm: there are just a very few people at the airfield, it is more than challenging to find someone who can help me to de-rig my glider. Suddenly everything gets complicated: it starts to rain a bit, they talk about ice very close the the airfield (Azzate), we have some difficulties during the lifting of the glider. 15-20 minutes of massive anxiety...and the storm goes away! As I want to fly the next day as well (which will be the 1st official day of the stage), I left the glider rigged at the airfield just to sleep one night...and we do it again together!