I had a fun 500km FAI triangle flight on Saturday out of Cedar Valley,
Utah to get my Silver badge so I can fly my first contest in Logan in
a few weeks and took an HD video camera along to document the
progress. There was plenty of virga but also crazy strong lift.

Take a look at 3:10 in the video and see the thermal going up at an
amazing 1,800 fpm to well past 18k. Please note that my pressure
altimeter shows 17,800 when I finally caught I was about to bust Class
A while going up like an airliner and pushed the nose over and I never
went higher than that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSSlBKjmC8Y&fmt=22

Link to the OLC for the flight:
http://www3.onlinecontest.org/olc-2....Id=-1861790549

Enjoy,
Bruno
phoebus.vassel.com