First flight from Aspres-sur-Buëch

I have flown many virtual tasks in Condor in the area and I really wanted to fly here in real life.

After the pilot that towed up before my failed to find any lift, I was expecting a disappointing flight.

I was wrong.

I released into a strong thermal and easily stayed well above the east facing ridge.
I made a few excursions to the ridge to the north to look down on where a hang gliding competition was hoping to launch.

The sky over the northern ridge was blue and the thermals weak so I went thermal hunting across the valley towards the mountain hamlet of Furmeyer where we were staying a few days.

Eventually I got to cloudbase and saw clouds building over Pic de Bure - I decided to use the opportunity to do a fly-by of the observatory and to fly over the Pas du Paul hiking trail.

Approaching the mountain I was flying with airbreaks to try and keep below 3000m, but eventually I had to fly out from under the cloud as I didn't bring oxygen and started to worry about cloud-suck.

Flying towards the west it started to rain as soon as I got to the next cloud and I decided to call it a day.

While packing up I met the Moyes team hang glider pilots who came down to say hi after their competition day was cancelled.

I was happy to have finally flown here in real life and I will definitely be back.