An afternoon flight at Algodonales, reaching another personal record - with a question for the pros 

Just come back from Algodonales its a great place to fly, very turbulent though but you can get good heights to escape most of it. My last trip challenge was to maintain lots of height above terrain avoiding all that washy air. There is a lot of channels where the air flow is disturbed and there can be a lot of sink to. Its a challenging place to fly or it can be very easy where it gives a false sense of security. I love to get as high as possible into the upper airstream and just sit there looking out at the landscape. Enjoying your videos cheers

Hi Jacques, I think that you're doing fine, getting used to height when thermalling can be daunting if you've done mostly ridge-soaring flights, or (like me) you're moderately afraid of heights. I find that to deal with the height issue, don't look down (sounds obvious, but when I get nervous it's the first thing I do..) I then remind myself to look at the horizon, or the wing, and focus on the task, i.e finding the best lift. If I keep bashing through lift and falling out of it repeatedly, thinking it's a really small tight thermal, I wait for the moment that I start to climb again, wait a second or two, then change the direction, and it usually works - I then know that I was turning on the edge of the thermal, falling out the side or back of it repeatedly. Also if you're falling out the back of it, it will feel very turbulent, so when you find it again, push into wind longer than you think, wait for the vario to slow down - falling out the front is not as rough, and you can turn downwind and chase a thermal that you've lost, if you've mentally mapped out where it was. Not a pro, but have figured a few things out for myself.

I'm always thinking about falling out the back so tend to skirt the windward side. Not because of the turbulence, but because it's harder and slower to find the thermal again, and if lots of sink you may never get back to it again as you're sinking behind it. This is in stronger wind of course. Not a pro yet, but have done some high flying in the rocky mountains 2500m-3000m is commonplace.

Would have been a good start to head off on an Xc to the mountain out ahead of west take off.

Hey when was it? 🤠