Niederoblarn to Lesce-Bled .. 19th June

An unstable day with showers developing and the Northern Alps moving into a poor weather phase - that was the prospects, so we decide to relocate to the South and choose Lesce-Bled in Slovenia.

Our initial thoughts were to run West from Niederoblarn but cloudbase lowered abeam St. Johann so turned East close to the Tauern tunnel (above) ran to the Veitch, close to the Semmering Pass. We encountered some terrific lift on this leg, peaking at 12.8kts.

 

Eisennerz, the Iron Mountain and massively quarried.

 

This view from the Hochschwab looking North towards the Danube, with a huge Thunderstorm in progress across the river.

 

To the South another massive thunderstorm. The Semmering pass top left, and the Lansen-Turnau valley. Time to head West again.

 

The Grimming dominates Niederoblarn, the airfield just visible top left.

 

Niederoblarn again, 2 hours after we took off from there.

 

Niederoblarn and the Grimming, those strong thermals certainly got the bugs airborne.

 

Zell-am-See spills into the lake. The basin below is one of Austria's thermal hotspots.

 

Zell-am-See airfield.

 

Good looking sky looking West from Zell to the Gerloss Pass. Unfortunately the thermals didn't match the clouds.

 

We chose to cross to the Southern Alps between the Grossglockner(12461') and the Grossvenediger(12028'), the highest and 4th highest mountain in Austria. The pass was 8140' and shows in the top right.

 

Quite tight, even for an EB28, but I guess we had 200' to spare.

 

What wasn't so obvious until we got there, was the rather substantial obstacles in the pass!

 

Pretty scenery, here the Millstattersee, but pretty awful thermals. Without the engine the flight would have ended at Lienz. A quick climb to a local peak got us back on track for Slovenia.

 

The Dorbratsch, dominates Noetsch in Southern Austria.

 

Looking into the Juliana Alps of Slovenia from Austria (The border runs along the ridge in front). The range is topped by the Triglav (9393').

 

Lake Bled, a picture postcard location close to the airfield.

 

The busy sport's airfield of Lesce Bled with it's 1200m grass runway.

 

Bugfest, most of these from the strong conditions earlier in the day in Eastern Austria. The glide into Lesce was noticeably affected by their prescence. Note the "other" EB28 which landed just after us.

 

More bugs.

 

Lake Bled c 30 degrees - lovely.

Photos by Robin May