After the extreme hot weather of June, it was a relief to arrive to July and finally enjoy some cool nights (under 20°C)... and colder weather means also the hope that we'll have 'spring-like' conditions! That's not perfectly true because anyway we're in the middle of summer, but the forecast predicted some good days in the Alps - so I decided to take 2 days off from work and dedicate Thursday and Friday to gliding.

On Thursday we started to rig the gliders around 10 am - luckily my ASW15 likes summer so recently it was always easy-peasy to rig it (that's absolutely not the case in winter - early spring). I did not prepare any task for this day - I wanted to see if it is possible to arrive to higher mountains and enjoy the great view & the cool temperatures from there. Spoiler: it was not possible again for me (and for most of the pilots:)).

I took off just before 1 pm, perfect timing. The first thermal was not very strong and during the aerotow I did not feel many lifts and movement so I started the flight above the mountains of Lugano CTR. This time I was lucky, they allowed me to go from Mt. Martica to Mt. Piambello and I could reach 1900 m here! After I left the CTR, I followed the classic way to the east: Mt. Orsa (this is always a crucial moment to find a thermal here!), Mt. San Giorgio, Generoso. A group of 3 people was just in front of me so we talked quite a lot in the radio. As I knew that after the Generoso they went directly in the direction of Mt. San Primo and the glide was not so nice, I decided to try another way and remain closer to the flatland. It was a good decision, I did not have any difficulty to reach Mt. Bisbino and then Brunate (Mt. Bolletto). As during my last flight Mt. Palanzone worked very well, I decided to try to search the next thermal in that area. Well, it was a strange day, started in blue, but here, near Alzate airfield we met the first cumulus...though Mt. Palanzone was not excellent at this time! I tried Mt. San Primo as well (here I saw many other gliders under me) and I reached the cloudbase. 

The glide until Corni di Canzo was really bad, I lost more than 300 meters of altitude. Well, no worries, there was a nice cumulus here so I went until the base again. I crossed Lago di Como with big hopes: I saw another cumulus on the other side! The thermal was not so great but I insisted here as I wanted to continue my flight to the south, in the direction of Valbrembo airfield. I went to Resegone, which is a beautiful mountain near Lecco with an impressive rock wall and a small refuge house on the top. I remembered that I was here the first time when I completed my FAI silver distance (50 km). I had much less idea about flying, it seems like a long time ago! Under me there was a very nice, modern glider who followed me along the way to Roncola. Well-developed cumulus clouds, good glide ratio, and new mountains to discover! Finally I arrived here... I had a great view on the first peaks of the "Bergamasca" and I also tried to search an outlanding field (Kong) which was near here... funny, I was too high to see it!

I decided to start to return in the direction of Calcinate because I was 60 km away from home and I did not have so much time till the end of the day (around 6 pm). Looking back now to this decision, I could have made a slightly longer flight but I knew also that the next day I'll fly again so I did not want to make myself very very tired. I had no problems with the return, I went also to Mt. Nudo and Luino to make my flight a bit longer. Here, on the "western side" I found weaker conditions - but close to home it was not a problem. I left the glider rigged, I just needed to fix it for a short night sleep and the next day we started it all over again!

On Friday I met 3 foreign people at our airfield: two of them came from Austria and they continued their way to France with their gliders. How cool is this, gliding-backpacker vacations are more and more popular! This might be the effect of the world champion Stefan Langer who also does many trips with his glider. There was another guy from the Czech Republic with his Discus and we tried to help him to have a waypoint file with all the landable fields and give some advice about local procedures. He did not need much advice anyway, I met him in the air above Varese and he was quite expert in circling well in small and weak thermals. 

I had the feeling that I can't have so many very nice flights in a row and the magic indeed disappeared this day: I found myself many times quite low and always near our airfield. It was impossible for me to find a good lift at Mt. Orsa! The 15 km/h SW wind broke all the thermals. Finally I arrived to Mt. Generoso and I got confirmation that this is really a strange day: the lifts were not strong here as usually. I went until Mt. Bisbino but I did not want to get further from Calcinate because it was already late and the thermals were not so inviting. 

One of my friends did a nice little flight and finally we met above the Sacro Monte to take some cool pictures of each other. I tried again Mt. Nudo at the end of the day, but even the glide there from Campo dei Fiori was horrible: I lost more than 300 meters in a small distance. We landed and we de-rigged my glider because there was a low risk of rain and thunderstorms that night. The forecast was quite pessimistic for the next day so I decided to stay at home... but that was a mistake actually, the next day did not seem bad at all...with many cumulus on the sky which were not very high... but if there are small distances among them, that is not a problem. 

Now crossing my fingers for more fresh air & conditions like on Thursday so we could enjoy the last thermals of the gliding season in Italy a bit more. Less than a month, and I will fly from France. Can't wait to return to Barcelonnette!

If you want to see my flights on OLC/weglide, you can find them here:

OLC Flight information - Adrienn Kiss (HU) - 10.07.2025 (onlinecontest.org)

OLC Flight information - Adrienn Kiss (HU) - 11.07.2025 (onlinecontest.org)

168 km · Adrienn Kiss · Calcinate del Pesce 07/10/2025 (weglide.org)

114 km · Adrienn Kiss · Calcinate del Pesce 07/11/2025 (weglide.org)