Yesterday driving back from De Aar we stopped at Welkom,

Conditions looked good with small Cu's building fast, conditions were
extremely instable with very dry air / low dew points (preventing OD).

Normally in these conditions with Very little wind, where you are always
switching runways to follow the wind & cloud base is so high - Getting
away is often a lottery. However the runway is long 2km, on my tow I
launched with a slight tail wind, running like mad with brakes around
knees & hope you don't trip. On tow the car reached 60 km/h before
finding a thermal @ 150m, I towed thru then turned back & found it again
@ 300m. Then a slow scratch up to 2000m (that height on tow was
essential to get away). At 2000m it gets cold & the thermal comes alive
all the way to 3500m (16000ft asl) I could have gone higher, base was at
about 4000m but climbing <1m/s just kills brain cells).

In the end all of us Stephan, Brad, Myself, Greg W, Andrea got away
first tow !!! Impressive. The AF facilities are really nice, toilets,
green grass to rig... Lots of triggers, a beautiful blue / green
flamingo pond next door. Roads in all directions. Most common direction
to fly is east in westerlies which takes you back to the N1. Ulf has
done a couple of 100km flights.

In such a beautiful sky I decided not to go for max distance & rather
head toward the N1 via the sailplane club & better looking clouds & less
shadow (cirrus from that cold front also cutting off radiation). But
alas 2 climbs above 3000m only got me to a round of applause from a pair
soccer teams about to play on my out landing pitch at henneman sports
club - 35km. Andrea flew 50km to Ventersburg on the N1 & could have
gone on.

My winching getaway hit rate the last 4 days is 100%, Thanks Ulf for
letting me fly & Greg J I definitely owe you a tow or 6.