I’d be stupid not to jump at the chance of a flight so when the opportunity arose I didn’t need any persuasion. We took off and pushed up wind to try and get a thermal climb. We got a nice climb over Sisteron but this wasn’t enough to get us into the wave. We spent the next hour in a mix of dynamic ridge, thermal and rotor lift and climbed to 9000’.

The wave continued in the Seyne valley with the vario at one point showing a rather nice 9knots to FL195 – and the scenery was stunning as far as the eye could see. I could safely say it was much better seeing it from the air than driving through it!

Some fantastic cloud formations appeared – with lower level cumulus, mid level altocumulus and higher lenticulars with the odd CuNim in the vicinity

I was quite glad I was with Rob as I didn’t have a clue where we were- the clouds not helping here!

The high level wave meant that oxygen was required. Here is me demonstrating how not to attach the nose piece but I didn’t pass out so it did its job! It was also quite hard concentrating on the flying with a camera stuck in your face!

Rob did his best to teach me how to mountain soar which I had never done before. I thought it was great fun and the ridge in the background gave us the roughest flying I had ever experienced – both out heads hitting the canopy multiple times. Unfortunately the adventure couldn’t last forever however we were the last to land with a majority of the gliding club gone home – most of which didn’t even fly that day!