Porterville personal bests

more flying catch up...

After getting back from Wilderness, the weather looked perfect at Porterville on Sunday. Slightly post-frontal with light winds and a good lapse rate. I excitedly called Eric to see if he was up for it. He was and with my Dad kindly offering to drive retrieve, we set off the next morning.

Eric on the ramp

To cut a long story short, Eric and I each broke our personal bests at Porterville, with Eric breaking his personal best distance ever. We launched within 5 mins of each other and landed within 5 mins of each other in the same field at Clanwilliam, 82.2kms and almost 4 hours later.

So, for the first time, we got through the Constriction where I have been stopped several times before. It was slow going, but FUN. Conditions were wonderful with strong, coherent climbs to cloudbase at 2500m above ground level. However, it was slow going as there was a slight headwind aloft. This meant we would stand still in the climb, and sometimes drift backwards.

I got high early and stayed high most of the day, whereas Eric pulled out a couple lovely low saves. His best was just short of Constriction when he was 300m off the deck and climbed to 2300m in Constriction. We both floated through constriction at cloudbase… what a feeling :)

We then had a great final glide of 17kms over the dam to Clanwilliam before landing at the airstrip. Two happy pilots.

10km from constriction at cloudbase. Getting excited.

At 2400m ASL, looking back at constriction :)

The Alegria turnoff in constriction with the Cederberg in the distance

Clanwilliam Dam. We landed just past the Dam wall,
right at the far end of the dam from this view.