High cloudbase and long convergence lines marked July

The 2022 season continues to surprise us.

The year started with relatively stable and wet conditions till mid April. This limited the XC potential in the first months of the year

May came with dryer conditions, higher cloudbase and the first opportunities for longer flights. Ivelin Kalushkov and Samuil Kazakov marked the beginning of the XC season with a few beautiful flights in NE Bulgaria. The blooming cannola fields made for some amazing scenery arround.

June surprised us with stable atmosphere and the usual spring rain. The unusual thing were the warm S airmasses that created stable inversions both in the mountainous and flatland regions. Again all these factors reduced the flight potential for the month.

With the onset of July however the season reminded us what “good conditions” were.

Between 18-th and 21-st of July – Ivelin Kalushkov made a few descent sized tasks in NE Bulgaria. Some of the most notable flights were made on the 19-th and 20-th with distances of 407 and 472 km accordingly. Despite the forecast for blue conditions, both days were characterized with well defined cloudbase at 2000 m ASL. The oncoming cold NE transfer helped form some well defined convergence lines.

The longest flight of the week had a total length of 471.5 km – Blagoevo – Belene – Targovishte – Silistra – Vetovo – Blagoevo.

The average speed of the flight was fairly low at 74 kph due to slow blue patch in central N Bulgaria where a mixing of stable airmasses from NW and NE was observed.

Despite that the 500 km mark was not reached – such days show help show the potential of the Bulgarian flatlands for some real record flights.

Next month we expect the Bulgarian Nationals between 13-th and 18-th of August at LBBL – Blagoevo.