I had organised to test the Skywalk Sage from Flugschule Hochries, unfortunately for the duration of the time I had the test wing the flying weather was very suboptimal. The only window turned out to be on the last day I had the glider, although the forecast was still fairly dubious with lots of cloud in the forecast but a good airmass.
As it was still only the end of April the road to the Melchboden start was not yet open, however our taxi driver thought that the gate may have been open already, so we took a chance and drop up to the gate. Unfortunately we found that it was locked shut, so we got out of the taxi ready to walk the last few km, however as we were repacking our bags for the walk someone from the alm at the starting place turned up with a key and agreed to give us all a lift which was great.
The conditions at the start were great with good climbs, a high base and no too much wind. We made the decision to fly towards Hintertux and then see how the day progressed. Unfortunately by the time we got to Tux the sky had clouded over significantly which made progress very slow. After scratching for ages above Tux we managed to get enough height to head back towards take off, which only required one more climb after some more scratching in the lee.
At this point the sky had fully clouded over, so I made a glide north over the Hochzillertal ski area before turning around to glide back to landing. I took the opportunity on the way back to practice scratching and extended my flight by turning in 0 and +0.1m/s climbs for a bit.
It was a shame that it clouded over, but it was great to be out in the mountains with great views and it was a great flight to test the new wing.
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