”Soaring and thunderstorms at Khao Sadao”

Three days and four flights. Not too bad when there were thunderstorms around every evening.

When we arrived on Friday in the afternoon there was heavy wind. Too much for paragliding. Just before sunset the wind slowed down and it was soarable. Bengt, Tawan, and I launched and got up. After a short flight we landed before dark. As we watched the western sky and the lentics high up, there came a burst of windgusts. Sand filled the air, and the others who had not packed their wings had to hurry. There was a smell of rain, and to the east the sky was black. We could hear thunderbolts not too far away.

Saturday morning we launched before the wind picked up. Very much up and down, and the thermals were quite small and did not take us very high. We landed on top of Khao Sadao in quite strong wind. We could may be have landed on the take off. I tried once but that was it. Bengt and Tawan landed close to the ridge. Bengt landed crosswind (there was no wind so he probably was in the rotor area). Tawan had a major frontal collapse at low altitude close to the ridge. I landed 300 meters back and almost did not penetrate till the wing reached the wind gradient.

Then there were strong winds till the evening. A hangglider pilot started in the variable wind, ran too slowly , and crashed to the right of the takeoff. Only a few rifts in the sail and a bent upright.

Beng and I started in the evening. Once again there were black clouds in the east. I did not see the heavy rainfall, a grey wall, some three to five kilometers away, before I was airborne. I went up at a steady speed. This was no normal thermal – the big cloud was sucking. I pulled ears to show Bengt that these were no conditions for flying. There was lift everywhere and not easy to find sink higher than the top of Khao Sadao. After a short flight we landed.

Sunday morning there was sun and wind when Bengt and I arrived at 08.30. We got out pretty fast. Scratchy thermals in the beginning, and then very much up and down. Bengt landed after an hour. I waited for the thermals to grow wider, and so they did. The main wind direction low down was from the south. From 1300-1400 meters it was from NW as forecasted in the Ready meteorogram. Catching the thermals I flew towards Khao Phrik. About 700 meters above Bengt who had packed his glider I got a major collapse when I was spat out from a very strong thermal. I did not see what was happening, but there was a big bang when the glider folded itself out and started to fly. Even Bengt far down heard the sound. I entered the thermal again but no more collapses.

Now Kru Khao, who wanted to go cross country, had landed due to change of wind direction below. I chose to land close to Bengt after two and a half hours of thermalling,

In the evening we were surrounded by rain, lightnings and strong wind. No more flying.