07.11.2013:  I have not been flying for a month now, largely due to my latest trip to Australia from which I only just returned a few days ago. Today the weather forecast was quite poor, with a layer of 8/8 clouds predicted over the “plains”, but my instinct told me that the layer must be quite thin and have some holes in it to be able to climb “on top”, where the weather should be nicer.

We took off around two in the afternoon, heading south towards the alps, and already above Lommis there were some holes in the cloud cover.

The more we flew towards the mountains the bigger the holes got….

…until we found some that were big enough to climb on top. To remain on the legal side you either have to find one that is more than 3 km in diameter (in airspace E, more than 2000 ft above ground) or one that is so close to a mountain so that you remain in airspace G (2’000 ft above ground in Switzerland), in which case you only need to remain out of clouds. 

As the cloud layer was quite high above ground we had to wait for a bigger hole, which we however soon found. The space needed for the actual circling is not big, as you can do so safely wt 50 kts with the SportCruiser, which nearly lets you turn on the spot.

Once on top we were rewarded with a great view over the alps. High above us we could see contrails of the F/A-18’s of the Swiss Air Force exercising dogfights, I hope the found some time to enjoyed the views too.

After having had grey skies on the ground for weeks my wife enjoyed the sun so much that she did not want me to return to Lommis for quite some time. Luckily the SportCruiser can fly nearly forever on an economical power setting, we could have flown around 9 hours on 12 l/h (which we didn’t) as I had filled the tanks before taking off.

The longer we flew the better the weather got, so that when we returned after nearly two hours the clouds had largely disappeared. What was disappointing was that we were just about he only ones in the air (apart from the FA-18’s). Ok, it was a Thursday, but that’s no reason not to go flying.