(author: Ivelin Kalushkov)

In the cold winter days at the beginning of the new year, let’s move for a moment to the middle of the summer of 2025.

The past year provided several excellent meteorological days that allowed for great achievements in terms of flying.

One of these days was July 13, 2025.

The forecast…

… for the day predicted a weak NE wind with a well-pronounced temperature gradient up to 3000 m NMW and the beginning of cloud development at 10 a.m.

Due to the terrain features of Ludogorie, the area around Blagoevo Airport often predisposes to the formation of low inversions in the area of ​​Razgrad and the lowlands in the area. This usually suppresses thermal development at the beginning of the day and conditions often start later than expected.

However, July 13 was one of the rare days when the meteo conditions arranged several meteorological effects in a perfect combination. At altitude, a slow inflow of a fresh, cooled air mass from the NW was observed, and in the middle layers there was also a weak inflow of unstable, but slightly more humid air from the NE.

The meeting of the two air masses was in a large area just over NE Bulgaria and caused perfect instability visualized by cumulus clouds arranged in pronounced convergent lines.

The beginning of the day

The first signs of convective condensation began to appear according to the forecast around 10:30. At 11:00 there were pronounced cumulus clouds SE from Blagoevo airport.

I had assembled the plane during the night and had prepared to go out to the runway. Samuel arrived that morning and after helping him assemble it I started to give it a little push because the cumulus clouds were starting to bloom. At 11:30 we were already on the runway.

Samuil took off first at 11:57 and reported good thermal conditions with climbs up to +3 m/s and a cloud base around 2500 m. I was second with takeoff at 12:11.

I felt that our tow pilot – Georgi was also enthusiastic because rarely did conditions look so good so early. The tow put me in a perfect thermal of 3 m/s and Georgi wished me to round off 500 km, knowing that I had been trying to do it for several years.

Initially the conditions were more clearly expressed on the E/SE, but according to the law of universal nastiness – all the nice looking cumulus clouds were concentrated in the area of ​​TMA Varna. Still, the conditions looked consistently good to the E.

Samuel had already started going to the East and was confirming my observations.

The cumulus clouds were in the airspace of Varna airport and the thermals were pushing you right there. Despite everything, flying East was relatively easy.

The average speed of the thermals was about 2 m/s so near the base I avoided turning anything slower than 2 m/s. Tracing the airspace was relatively easy as we still had some kind of cloud line to follow. North of my line, however, it was blue and cloudless due to the inversion that was spreading from the Danube and the N

Shortly after the town of Tervel, the conditions ahead suddenly disappeared and a large blue hole was formed.

I flew the distance from the village of Hitovo to the village of Zementsi in blue to check if there were any climbs. Above Zementsi was the last cumulus cloud of my line. After not catching any climb during the glide I decided I wouldn’t risk extending in that direction and turned W for the second point.

Noon convergences…

… marked the way to the West. I had no significant sink and the clouds looked good.

However, when you move more than 100 km from the home airport, doubts about the conditions make you work more cautiously. Fortunately, as I had expected, the day was just beginning.

The clouds were well arranged, but the menacing blue hole in the North made me stay pressed close to the airspace zone and be careful about the drift of each climb. The weak NW wind at altitude had allowed me to maintain a good average speed to the E. I had reached the first point with an average speed of about 94 km/h.

On the way back, a large area of ​​decay caused by local shading S of Isperih forced me to deviate, which slowed me down and added a significant deviation to the trajectory. After adding altitude before Razgrad and once I was back in the approach line, I could see that the conditions ahead were better and I had to choose the cloud street under which to depart.

Usually, the conditions to the W are better in the direction of Veliko Tarnovo, but there I would be squeezed by the area of ​​Gorna Oryahovitsa airport. The other alternative line that often works well is towards Byala and Svishtov. I decided that it was better to orient myself more against the wind in order to avoid the thermal drift and more likelihood, the N line to converge with the low NE wind.

The bet turned out to be successful. It rarely happens in this area that the N line is better, but this time the cumulus clouds continued much further W near Svishtov than in TMA Gorna Oryahovitsa.

It was already around 4:00 PM. In front of me, I could see the clouds thinning and the blue hole on duty after Svishtov.

Knowing that I would have to go back and make an additional line to extend the flight, I squeezed the conditions, saying to myself “One more cloud ahead”. There were still well-formed clouds on the E side of me, but I expected them to start disappearing at any moment.

The return was again downwind, and the conditions remained uniform and pleasant. Each cloud worked predictably and without surprises – there were no low descents or struggles to stay in the air.

The base had risen to 3000 meters, with three altitude gains I managed to get back to Blagoevo and started to extend the line to the South knowing that the penultimate leg would be to the North against the wind so that I could return with a nice glide downwind.

Shortly after Targovishte the clouds started to show the first signs of the conditions dying – a looser structure, the cycles did not follow constant time intervals and from the North it was starting to turn blue. I set off to the NW following the last wisps that I saw ahead of me adding altitude regularly. Ahead of me was a threatening blue and I knew that one of the next glides would be final.

I was constantly switching the device between the screens for calculating the final glide and the current flight optimization … according to the numbers I was at a planned optimization of 498 km. I squeezed every little climb, passed Tsar Kaloyan and entered the blue hole in front of me.

Halfway to Shtraklevo, the optimization showed that I was closing 500 km. The devices had a small difference in the calculations.

I squeezed a few more kilometers on the glide and when I saw that I had 300 meters left to glide home to the airport, I turned around.

It was easy again with the wind. I returned under some condensation wisps that offered very little support. I was gliding to the airport and to my horror, the optimization of the main device decided that I would arrive 498 km from completing the task. I started thinking of a scheme how to extend it by another kilometer and enter the approach straight – 1 km to the South + 1 km return would give me 500 km exactly.

The other device said that I would return at an optimized distance of 505, but my skepticism told me that I should not believe it. Just as I was flying parallel to the runway calculating whether I would be able to make the extension, a weak thermal of 0.5 m/s hit me I started to turn it, squeezing the stick and pulling it up as if I wanted to pull the plane and myself just to gain altitude – like Baron Munchausen pulling him self up by his hair. However, the thermal settled at 1 m/s and I returned back to 1600 m. I had already calmed down, I knew that I would definitely make the coveted 500.

I launched a glide to the South and watched how the Naviter scrolled the numbers.

Looking at the altitude, however, I knew that I would have much more to extend. Once again, it turned out that the optimization of the other device was more accurate, I had made 500 without the need for the last thermal.

It had been over 7 hours since I took off – I extended the glide to the maximum and happily glided North for a direct entry into runway 33.

Smiling from ear to ear, I wrote a message to Georgi thanking him for his wish upon takeoff and for having fulfilled it. The final optimization showed 517km. This meant that I had managed to improve the recorded Bulgarian records for free flight by 3 points in all classes except open class and two-seater.

I was mildly annoyed afterwards, realizing that the open class record was 533 km – which I think was achievable, but we should have new goals anyway 🙂

Full flight trace can be seen here:

https://www.weglide.org/flight/643875

Virtual replay of the flight can be seen here:

https://www.sportstracklive.com/en/track/map/viper_weasel/gliding/razgrad-blagoevo/1409244/?mode=3D

According to the optimization, the numbers are:

517 km by OLC Optimization by 5 freely selected points.

470 km by optimization for 3 points

Average speed 70 km/h

In the end, Blagoevo, Ludogorie and the Danube Plains once again proved that they have the potential for record flights!

Thanks to everyone involved!

May the new year bring us more days like this!