Lefkara Down Down

Dave called me to let me know that we had the Red Rocket back temporarily and so he and Tim were going to Lefkara (Kourtellarotsos) for some thermic action.  I called Jamie to ask if he'd like to try a tandem flight (as part of my crusade to get everyone at this end of the island to join the club and add some much needed pennies to the clubs funds) and he said he would.  Dave I knew would be happy to take him but a courtesy call confirmed my suspicions and we set off.  On arrival the wind was looking ok if a little intermittent and we all piled into the rocket and set off for launch.  On the top the wind was anything but on.  A little from East then from the South then the occasional spot of Northerly and back to South again.  We were all less than impressed but Dave assured us that this was normal and by noon the wind should be nicely trickling up the South slope and we could launch.   The day was slightly overcast with a fairly thick layer of lifted dust and this was keeping the sun from penetrating all the way to the ground with enough energy to heat it.  Thus the small thermic bubbles that were passing through were just that, small!  at 12:00 we went for a short walk along the ridge to the Eastern end and found that a very nice wind was pushing up this slope.  Unfortunately this slope is not a recommended launch due to the Greek military base at it's foot.  The Police have been known to attend the landing field in the past (largely due to Dave flying far too close to their airspace) and asking why we are there!
Anyway I knew this did not bode well for any good flights but we were all now very hot and irritable and decided to return to launch to see if things had improved.  Well not really but there was enough of a Southern wind to launch happily and so we decided to go for it even if it would be a straight top to bottom.  Dave took off first with Jaimie on the Tandem and quickly dropped out of the little lift that was there and as I watched I feared they would not make the landing field.  After some beats along the ridge and then a try for lift in the valley they gingerly eeked as much as they could out of the very small lift patches and managed to scrape into the field with inches to spare Jaimie put his leg into a thorn bush but other than that was very happy with his flight.  Tim launched second and enjoyed about 15 minutes in the air before also conceding defeat when his glider decided it wanted to be behind him and not above him any more.  He landed very close to Dave's helmet which was laid on the ground as a make shift target.  I launched last into some mildly turbulent air and went pretty much straight down! well it's a better way to get down than driving!  very nice flight even if it was short!

Here is my track log