A Sunday in Yelagiri

Some of us went out to Yelagiri last Sunday as the winds were predicted from the SSE, ideal for the Jayakrishnan take off. It was a wonderful day, hot and with a lovely set of smooth thermals kicking in at regular intervals. Rajesh had a short flight to start with and then I managed a respectable 45 mins as I caught several thermals that sent me some 500 m above take off over the Yelagiri plateau. I eventually landed back on the plateau in order to grab some lunch and get a good nap under a tree. The afternoon saw pleanty of restitution winds sweeping in and I had a lovely little flight down to the landing field in order to reception Akshay on his first solo flight. Akshay has enrolled on the advance course and has really got to grips with the paraliding. We need to work on his landing aproach, but overall he was happy with his first flight.

Here is a short video of the photos that were shot on that day



more photos on our picasa page

For those aspiring to do a cross country flight in Yelagiri, I would say the conditions are just ripe and will probably stay optimum for another couple of weeks. This is my first real season there and the thermals were very clean and large enough to catch. A couple of years back I did a 60K flight in Nandi around this time of the year, but Nandi degrades in early to mid April as large thunder clouds develop in the mid afternoon. Yelagiri I think will stay dry as it moves into April, but I do expect the increase in heat to render the air hotter and more homogeneous, thus making the thermal very choppy and small. I hope to get a little more flying experience later in April.