With a great forecast for the day in Osttirol, I decided to head down to Sillian for a day, hoping to manage a 100km FAI triangle. The day started later than I was hoping, however there was still plenty of time to make the triangle as I started.
The first section of the flight went pretty smoothly, although I would have liked some stronger thermals, however on my first major valley crossing I realised that there was a much stronger west wind than was forecast due to Föhn over the main alpine ridge between Bruneck and Innsbruck. This resulted in two problems, firstly I had a poor glide and secondly I dropped down into the Lee at the end of the valley crossing. When this was combined with also dropping through an inversion layer resulted in thermals which were impossible for me to climb in, really strong pockets of rising air which were far to small to complete a turn in.
After fighting for ages, I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t going to work and made my way to land in Italy. Thankfully getting back to Launch was not difficult with a short bus ride and then a train. It was a shame to have bombed out on a good day, and a lesson to re-check the situation in the morning, as when I checked the weather after landing I realised that the forecast for Sillian had worsened due to the wind and the forecast for Greifenburg had significantly improved.
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