After a very poor night of sleep in a nearby hotel, my body was not happy to be awake and at the Sky Club Austria flight school at 06:30 in order to pay for the shuttle which was leaving at 07:00. After paying I made use of their supply of coffee, before 2 shuttle busses and a coach arrived which the large group of eager pilots quickly climbed into.
After the long drive up to the end of the road my mood had not improved much, however the tension about the upcoming plan was definitely starting to build. There was a walk from the shuttle bus to the summit, where the views kept getting better and better. It was very strange to be waiting on launch so early, and also with so many high classification wings being unpacked. This was definitely not a normal distribution of pilots.
This was confirmed when talking to a local sponsored pilot about if he thought the conditions were good enough for the FAI triangle, in this conversation 200km was the short option! The air felt like it must be working, but nobody was taking off, everyone was waiting for the first person to take off and climb before launching..
Eventually the first person took off and was immediately launched into the air, I was about 10 pilots behind and quickly climbed away. I was glad to be off and away from launch as it was rapidly becoming more chaotic even so early in the launch sequence.
I climbed fairly well straight up above launch, and enjoyed looking down at everybody who was lower from up high as I set off on my first glide. One of the advantages of taking off early is that it is much easier to get established in the early week thermals, as there are less pilots in the air.
The first section along towards and next to the Dachsteingebirge was fairly slow, with the base not having properly lifted yet and the day still not being at its best. Here there was essentially one large gaggle who stayed together, with different people having successes and failures at different points but generally all merging again.
After getting as much height as possible we all left the higher mountains and headed to the smaller hills on both of the route options. The first was to head north west towards Hochkönig and then onto the hills before Lofer, this was the start of a 200km FAI triangle, was my real objective and was what was loaded into my vario. The other was to carry on west to join the Pinzgau, with the aim of turning around at around the 100km mark, for a 200km flat triangle. The advantage of the second option was that an earlier turn around point was always possible and you were always flying along a train line, the first option was potentially involving a long journey back from a bomb out.
In the end we elected to continue with our main objective, and I am so glad we did. The crossing towards the Hochkönig and Steinernes Meer was pretty easy, with good climbs out after the crossing and as soon as you connected with the cliffs the climbs were pretty strong. The crossing of the Hochkönig was pretty easy, but I found the air a bit strange, I think there was a weak inversion layer which was stoping most of the climbs, but the stronger ones were punching through.
A few climbs later and were were at our first turn point above Lofer, and ready to head back along the Hochkönig before heading towards the main ridge of the alps.
The journey back along the Hochkönig was very easy, in fact the only challenge was staying below the FL130 airspace at some points. After leaving a strong climb with 200m to spare before the airspace we set off on the long valley crossing towards the Pinzgau, arriving with good altitude into another strong climb.
At this point unfortunately Manuel and I had a miscommunication which resulted in us going separate ways, which was a shame as up to this point we had been flying well together. I then crossed the Pinzgau along with another pilot we had been flying with, who sent me the photos of me below.
After crossing the Pinzgau I managed to get stuck below a weak inversion for a while, but it wasn’t an issue as I could fly along the ridge without losing much height, but whenever I tried to thermal up I just got blown by the wind and didn’t gain much height. Eventually I saw a bird of prey circling and went to join it, only to discover it was a Bearded Vulture, along with about 5 others in the same thermal, magic!
From here I was soon at the second turn point and just had the last leg to go back to complete the triangle. I wasn’t entirely convinced I was going to get back as it was starting to get later in the day, but I was still hopeful, and I appeared to have a small tailwind which was helpful, if not unexpected.
This leg was remote and along near the main divide of the alps, which was pretty special. There was only one moment I was worried that I was going to have to land a very long walk out from the main valley!
Unfortunately just after the second turn point my heated gloves ran out of battery, which was made a particularly large problem with the fact that I was flying up to 4100m at this point in the flight and was generally above 3000m, it took about 2 days for the feeling to return in my fingers…
Eventually I started to actually believe that I would get back and then before I knew it I was within glide of closing the triangle. I should have done a bit more research into the shape of the valley and the shape of the triangle, as in the end I prioritised heading towards launch to close the triangle and get my first 200km FAI, however this meant not making the flight school where my car was as I entered the valley wind pretty early. I could have been the same distance from launch by staying in the high mountains and just landing at the flight school.
In the end this didn’t really matter, as it meant landing in the same field as Manuel and waiting 10 minutes for a 1.4 euro train straight back to the car.
I am still processing this absolutely fantastic flying day, and now that I have successfully closed a 200km FAI triangle, I expect it will be a while before I break another one of my flight records, but I certainly look forward to trying!
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