Booni

The morning after my arrival in Booni, I took a jeep to the take-off at 7am. It was far too windy to fly, so I came down in the jeep and was invited to the driver’s (Ameer’s) house to meet his wife and children and drink a chai. Romain arrived by jeep with Mansoor that night. I was VERY pleased to see them – it had been a long drive, and they had lost a Russian.

The next day, we left to go flying at 8am. The day was perfect, with small cumulus forming in the high mountains (7800m peak behind take-off). I took of at about 11am, and made a small tour of the huge mountains to the north. The scenery around there is indescribable. I got up to 6400m (pretty chilly on the face) and flew around huge peaks and glaciers for most of the day. I landed about 15km short of Booni (on the wrong side of the river). This meant that I had to walk for an hour, and then sit in a truck with some very nice guys for another hour.

The following day (exhausted) Romain and I left for the take-off with Mansoor. We took off together, and flew together up to Chitral through the big mountains, across to the Booni Zom range, down past Mastuj, and back to Buni. I flew 6 hours, and got up above 6000m a few times – spectacular, and great to fly with Romain in radio and visual contact.

If you want to see the track-logs (apart from the Gilgit to Handarap flight which got erased by the other 2), they are here : http://www.xcontest.org/world/en/pilots/detail:dimbo

Bye

Demian