Wind and more wind

The Nordics continued ot be plagued by strong winds. On Monday it looked like there was a small chance for a task and all pilots were transported to launch. Unfortunately it was blowing over the back and getting stronger all the time. Up there it was quite cold, most pilots were dressed up in full flying gear and seeked shelter from the wind. In my opinion the French team used the waiting time in excellent style. They used the aluminum foil that was used to wrap the lunch sandwhiches to construct petanque (aka "jeux de boules") balls by wrapping small stones. And then played many rounds of petanque at times improvising extravagant techniques and different "balls". At noon commpetion director Mads cancelled the day and requested that everybody did a it of rock clearing (see picture).

After that people took off in various directions. Esa, Kari, Kasper and myself went for a real nice hike in the Gredos mountains. In the mountains the winds were very strong indeed, we were happy to be on the gound.
Later in the evening the weather started to calm down, and we Finnish pilots went to check out the conditions at the antenna launch. A bit before 9 PM Ari and Mladen got in the air and enjoyed buoyant air and the last thermals of the day. Jouni and I started a few minutes later, too late in fact to get up but it was nice tet some air under our feet after many days of waiting!

On this Tuesday both the forecast as wel as the sky indicated more strong south-west winds so the day was cancelled at the morning briefing. All forecasts predict that the classical Piedrahita weather will be with us tomorrow....