And the best is yet to come!

2025. április 24. - Glidingirl

The middle of April was very rainy again in North Italy so that means no flying - useless to say that I was quite sad those days. But the weekend of Easter finally gave some hope: Monday seemed promising so instead of doing the traditional grill party, I chose gliding.

We received a task also at the local competition "Coppa Villa-Pavesi" so before my flight I prepared the task in XCSoar - it was a 1 h 50 min AAT with the following waypoints: Campo dei Fiori - Clusone (50 km radius circle) - Piancavallo (20 km radius circle) - Calcinate.

I took off in the right moment, happily reached the max. altitude above Campo dei Fiori (1676 m) - so let's cross the start line! This was the first unpleasant surprise: even though I did it 3 times, the next waypoint infobox never changed, XCSoar did not accept my start. I looked at it carefully but it did not offer the option to do manual start. What a shame, I won't be able to complete the task!

I saw that the cumulus clouds were still quite low so I decided to "start" the task entering into Lugano CTR and choosing a very careful way with short glide distances between the mountains. The plan was this: Campo dei Fiori - Mt. Martica - Mt. Piambello - Mt. San Giorgio. Well, the plan... I reached Mt. Martica and the tower asked about my intentions. I explained it (probably they have already known what I wanted to do as this is typically done by glider pilots) and they said: there is important IFR traffic today, they think it won't be possible. I left Mt. Martica and the CTR and returned to Campo dei Fiori. I did some thermals above Mt. Nudo and Mt. Sette Termini but I was not high enough to cross Lago Maggiore and go in the direction of the higher mountains.

I decided to try again the way to the east and slowly I succeeded to reach further mountains. I was quite happy above Mt. Generoso around 2000 m! I went until Mt. Cornizzolo among 1600-1950 m and I saw that the clouds were working quite well. I did not push forward because I heard in the radio (and also according to the forecast) that the conditions are not so good after the city of Lecco.

On the way home I lost quite a lot of time above Mt. Bollettone because of trying to search the best spot (and getting tired). Finally I did the max. altitude, I crossed again Lago di Como and from Mt. Bisbino I did not stop until the city of Varese. Campo dei Fiori, Mt. Nudo: I am again at 1950 m, so why not to cross the lake? This longer glide was quite pleasant, I did not lose a lot of altitude above the lake. I arrived to the spot which is called 'Albergone' by the local glider pilots and I started to search for the thermal around 1650 m. The cumulus was not exactly above the top as usually but I was calm to search, I knew that it is very likely that I can arrive home even if I do not find anything. But I found! I stayed a bit here and decided to return home with a long final glide. I met another pilot under the ridge of our "home mountain" (Campo dei Fiori) and he took some nice photos of me.

All in all the day was very pleasant with nice cumulus everywhere, it was just a pity that they weren't a bit higher. As before the take-off it was very hot on the ground I decided not to wear my Skyboots and my feet were frozen. It was only around 5-6°C during the flight so I regret the idea of not wearing them. But the best is yet to come, as I flew also the next day. Stay tuned!