About my Flying in Yelagiri, last weekend

I had 4 flights in all, in the 3 full days that I was in Yelagiri last weekend. I will write about 2 of them which I enjoyed the most.

Landed at Yelagiri on Thursday evening and was all eager & charged up for my first 'flight chance' on Friday morning. I arrived at the Ramakrishna take off site with all my family - wife two kids (2 & 4 yrs) and my pet, a Labrador, just recovering from a liver infection.

It turned out to be a beautiful morning. All pilots including new P2 students were soaring so merrily on the ridge, left of take-off. When I was just about beginning to savour the exhilarating prospect of a lovely flight, My wife was offered a tandem by Temple Pilots. She was over the moon. She had a beautiful, 'mind altering' flight and I paid the bill - babysitting my kids & walking back with my glider & all mentioned 'baggage,' all the way back to parking.

With a 'mind altered' happy wife, sleeping kids & resting pet left behind, I went back to the site at about 3 PM to take my second 'flight chance'. It turned out to be my first flight of the trip and the most memorable one too.

The Southern side, west facing part of Yelagiri (left of Ramakrishna take-off) has a beautiful ridge, one of the best I have flown other than the ones in Billing. It is, I believe to be as good as the west side of Tower Hill in Kamshet - the western bowl below the tower.

The Ramakrishna takeoff is at the lowest point in the entire ridge line south of take-off and the ridge rises all the way after take-off till its peak point. Riding this beautiful & challenging ridge was the high point of my flight that first afternoon. After a 'no-abort take off' and a few minutes of settling in, in front of the take-off, I decided to ride the ridge. I was below the take-off within leaving 200 mts of the take-off and before I could reach the middle sections of the first rock face. From then on, aided by nice smooth winds, I enjoyed working hard and climbed up all the way to the peak point. Must have taken me a good 25-30 minutes to do that. A few more beats, a few facile attempts at wing overs followed by some planning for landing, I headed for landing. I was able to execute the landing plan without any major unknown surprises down the way. The landing ground discovered by Avi is 'made to order' and offers great room for practising landing skills.

The 'second best' flight was Yesterday morning -Sunday. Strong winds with large south component at take-off - was exactly as per XC forecast. Waited till about 1015 to settle, it came down a bi,t but was getting real thermic. Temple Pilots decided to stop further flights for students. Besides that, the forecast early morning, talked about watching out for 'wind shear'.
Launched my glider, had a partial collapse on the way up. Pumped it, inflated it & stabilized it overhead before moving forward for take-off. Thermic conditions in front of take-ff, not too worrying though. settled in & set to climb up without going too close to the ridge line, since the winds were quite cross south. Reached about 100-150 m above take-off around there and palpitating discovered that there was a different layer of winds flowing much faster with a much greater southern component. The transition to this layer was an experience that likes of Walt Disney may never be able to simulate even in the next century. The wind here was cold, moist & hazy all around while a few hundred feet below it was all lit up & hot - like watching a huge lit up room down ways, from the darkening doorsteps outside. The affects on the mind - I will leave it to all your own imagination. The affects on the glider though was very different from what I have experienced in thermic turbulence. There, if all the affects on the glider are more in the x & z axes, here they are almost entirely in the y axis. Some serious 'yawing' and you can feel the extreme stress the glider undergoes. Spent very little time on the ridge line and that too, at a good height. Came away from the ridge quickly, after the experience down back to regular happy thermic conditions which, I am slowly getting comfortable with. A nice landing in strong winds and some soothing reception by a local woman who has her house at the road edge of the landing zone. Water, coolants and flashing smile offered with great warmth. Enjoyed it.


Already looking forward to my next trip to Yelagiri.....can only get better.