Try, try and try, but the day got cancelled

The weather this morning did not look very promising, although the weatherman assured us that there would be a window of flyable weather with a patch of "good unstable air" moving our way, however with thunderstorms possible as early as 5:00PM. The primary tasks were Assigned Area Tasks with a first leg to the North (with a small 5 Km radius on the turnpoint) to get away from the airspace directly East and West of the field, then a leg toward the West to an area with a 25 Km radius, a third leg toward the Northeast to an area with a 25 Km radius, and return Southwest to Issoudun via a steering turnpoint with a 5 Km radius. Task times were initially set at 2:30 hr, with the backup tasks using the same route, however lower times.

The initial take-off time of 12:30 first got postponed to 1:00, then 1:30, while the sniffer tried desperately to hang on. Plenty of time to relax on the grid.

The 15m Class was at the front of the grid today, followed by the Club Class, then the Standard Class. At 1:45 PM, we got the call that the Standard Class Task was cancelled, but 15m and Club were planned for a 2:00 PM launch with a reduced task time of 2:00 hr. The sniffer felt that the famous "window of good air" had arrived -- and indeed some Cumulus had appeared in the Northern sector -- however the expected duration of convection would be too short for the class launching last to have any chance at a decent task.

15m launched at 2:00 PM, as planned, and a time for their gate opening was announced, but the sky rapidly turned dark and overcast. The Club Class task was cancelled before their launch, and the 15m task was cancelled shortly after that, just before the planned time of their gate opening. Back to the trailers to de-rig the gliders in anticipation of the coming storms this evening. Unfortunately, tomorrow does not look much better. Stay tuned.