The 1st of April (Tuesday) was an amazing day with wonderful cumulus and very high altitude everywhere (well above 3000 m) so I was quite sad to follow it only from home. But that's life, sometimes we need to work... :)
But let's prepare for Thursday, it also seems nice! I spent all day in the office on Wednesday and after it, late in the evening went to the airfield to rig the glider. It was important because I knew that there will be a very long queue on Thursday already early in the morning as it was also the first day of the SAP (Stage Alta Performance, organized every year by Alberto Sironi where usually 30-40 pilots participate from around the world).
On Thursday I arrived to the airfield a bit before 8 am and I just needed to take the glider to the runway (it was quite comfortable so the inconvenience of rigging it on Wednesday worth it). I prepared everything, I dried the surface and I talked to some participants of the SAP (from Voghera) to know which task they will fly. They said that the "pedemontana" region will be nice (where mountains meet with flatland) so they received a 300 km task to Saló (Lago di Garda). That is too far for me, the waypoint is 150 km from our airfield!
Based on Xctherm's forecast I thought that it will be also okay to plan a task in the direction of Masera Airfield (Val d'Ossola) and then to the east near Valbrembo airfield but it was a mistake. Despite my error regarding the task setting, the flight started in a very enjoyable way: in a relatively short time I found myself at Mt. Tamaro at 2200 m, but this was the maximum altitude. It is not sufficient for me to cross Lago Maggiore because I would arrive to Mt. Limidario around 1700 m which would make me feel uncomfortable. The mountains are getting high in the Cento Valley so I prefer to fly in this zone above 2500 m.
No problem, the plan can be changed, let's head to the east where everyone goes! The flight went pretty well until Mt. Bollettone where I had an idea to try to head to the north again, in the direction of Mt. San Primo where people usually climb higher. It was not the case this day: the cumulus clouds were the same low as everywhere so I was quite disappointed. I returned to Mt. Bollettone and continued in the direction of Lecco.
Even though the distance is not very big for a high performance glider between Mt. Bollettone and Cornizzolo, it was a bit challening for me that day. At Cornizzolo I found a few paragliders and the visibility was not nice at all. I pushed forward until the last mountain before the lake and I decided to stop here. Was it a good decision? I should have continued more to the east? Good question, I do not have the reply... probably I could have done a bit more but with significant stress levels and even more challenging situations.
I went again until Mt. Lema and I wanted to re-do the whole course but the second time I reached only Mt. Bisbino. Nevertheless, the flight was enjoyable, tiring (more than 5 hours in the air!) and quite satisfying.
If you want to see my flight on OLC/weglide, you can find it here:
OLC Flight information - Adrienn Kiss (HU) - 03.04.2025 (onlinecontest.org)
213 km · Adrienn Kiss · Calcinate del Pesce 04/03/2025 (weglide.org)
