Too early for summer

2025. május 09. - Glidingirl

April said goodbye with a strangely hot, summer-like weather: around 30 degrees on the ground (31.3 °C just before take-off in my ASW15b), 0°C at 3700 m, just like in July. The problem with this weather is the position of Calcinate del Pesce airfield: we remained in the dirty air with very strong inversion. So in this case once you arrive to the high mountains, you can reach the good weather, the cumulus and the high cloud base, but... once you arrive. If you do so. And I did not succeed for two days.

I did the first attempt on 30th April: I found a good thermal on Campo dei Fiori so as usually, I went straight to the next mountain, Mt. Nudo. During this glide I needed to face some technical problems on board: my navigation instrument turned black for an unknown reason and even the other navigation instrument (a Kobo with XCSoar on it, I wear it attached to my left leg) was nearly not visible, the screen had some problems because of the sun. Well, not a nice situation to start the flight: two navigation instruments on board and none of them work properly. And even Mt. Nudo did not work properly, what a strange situation! I got low, and under the ridge it was impossible to find any thermal.

No worries, let's retry it the next day and solve the technical problems on the ground. At this point it was clear that the best way to follow is through the mountains of Lugano CTR: Campo dei Fiori - Mt. Martica - Mt. Piambello - Sette Termini and then Mt. Lema. Well, the idea was good, the reality was again very different: Lugano CTR had IFR traffic like if it was Heathrow Airport! Needless to say how disappointed I was at the end of the day: I flew 3 hours above Campo dei Fiori and Varese city, I felt like I had the time to see the faces of each tourist on Campo dei Fiori! Low and slow all day, as mamma prefers...

I knew that my last chance is Friday, 2nd May - after this day the weather will get worse. I was as determined as never before. I won't give up! The first part of the flight was very difficult again: even though I entered with a good altitude to Lugano CTR, when I reached Mt. Piambello, they sent me out of the CTR because there was IFR traffic arriving to Lugano Airport. Noooo...

But the strong determination finally paid off: I decided to follow the classic way so I went to Mt. Nudo and slowly I found myself at Sette Termini and Mt. Lema. At Mt. Lema I already knew that I did it: I reached the good weather zone, even though it was late, around 4 pm. Too much happiness, I did it, I cannot believe!

Well, the tiredness at this point did not give me a good advice for the next part of the flight: I should have gone to Mt. Limidario when I crossed the lake, but I chose Albergone and I did not find any thermal here. It was too late? It was too close to the flatlands, so to the bad weather zone?

That bad decision left a bittersweet feeling in my mouth even though I decided that I will celebrate the resistance and the hard work of this day. I could have done it in a different way? Sure. But that was anyway a little moment to enjoy, I learnt from the mistakes of the previous days and I succeeded in leaving the area near Calcinate.

The day did not finish at this point, we needed to de-rig the gliders because from the next day the weather forecast predicted rain and thunderstorms. After driving home, I enjoyed a well-deserved pizza and beer combination, typical of gliding days.