Trying, but failing, to fly

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Monday, 6th June 2011

Posted by on 06 Jun 2011 | Tagged as: Trying, but failing, to fly

Geoff writes: the forecast wasn’t at all bad for the Mynd today, with sun, cumulus and light westerlies. I was optimistic for a decent XC day. However, as has been typical this year, this turned out to be nil wind nearly all day, with very, very weak cycles coming through, at very long intervals. And mostly off to the south. People did try it out, either going down (as I did once) or slope landing. No-one got more than a hundred feet or so, and most got much less than that. No-one got away.

I finally gave up on going XC at 6.00 pm. As I was leaving, about 6.20, the wind started, and it became soarable. By the time I got home, there were some gliders at around 1000′ ATO – but too late to go XC, even at this time of year. Looking at Wendy Windblows now (around 8.00 pm), it is 7 – 14 mph west. If only it had been that a few hours ago, instead of zero.

From Wendy, it seems likely that the Peaks was flyable all day with reasonable winds, and probably Llangollen too. As was Parlick, the Lakes, Wetherfell. And maybe even the Dyke.

Wednesday, 1st June 2011

Posted by on 01 Jun 2011 | Tagged as: Trying, but failing, to fly, Walking

Geoff writes: it may be the first of June, but it’s still pretty cold. I thought today would be quite breezy, not an XC day, at least on the paraglider, so decided to do the walk we had planned for last week – the Berwyn Ridge Walk. Starting at the largest waterfall in Britain (depending on which bit of the internet you believe, it may or may not be the largest, but it’s still 240 feet – not bad) you walk up to Cadair Berwyn, on the top of the ridge, than back down. The views are stunning – the web site says: “to the east you will see the flat fertile land of Cheshire, to the south the Brecon Beacons and hills of South Wales, to the west the high mountains of Cadair Idris and the Rhinogs and to the north west you will see the three highest mountain ranges in North Wales, the Snowdon massif, The Glyders and The Carneddau”. Except it wasn’t quite that stunning today, since as I arrived at the top, the cloud came down, and cut off the views.

So a walk back down the ridge, to the tea room at the bottom of the waterfall – an amazing location for a tea room, with a perfect view of the waterfall. They even put out bird food on the fence posts at the tea room, so the birds come and sit right next to you as they (and you) eat.

So, although the weather wasn’t brilliant, definitely worth a trip back on a sunny day.

Driving back home, it was clear that it wasn’t as windy as I had expected, and in fact back at the Mynd there were at least three PGs in the air, plus Wayne setting up his hang glider, so off I went. The wind picked up though, and I couldn’t be bothered just gale hanging. It dropped off again around 8.00pm and most people got to fly, but by that time I’d given up and gone for some food.

Thursday, 28th April 2011

Posted by on 29 Apr 2011 | Tagged as: Archery, Trying, but failing, to fly

Geoff writes: A sunny day, but a little windy. Also totally blue, with the usual, now permanent, inversion. We did half heartedly go up to Corndon, where it was sort of flyable, if a little windy. A few people were there, but, being Corndon, in spite of the wind they were getting no height at all. After sitting in the car for a while, and chatting to various people, we decided to can it, went home, picked up the archery stuff, and went to do some shooting. Very pleasant, and infinitely better than another frustrating day on Corndon.

 There is a shoot there on Friday, for the royal wedding. I’m assuming it’s to celebrate the wedding, rather than have their faces painted on the targets, so I guess we won’t bother going. Amazing how many people fall for this sycophantic rubbish. I never cease to be amazed at how so many people can be so gullible. It’s very sad – people’s brains have so much potential, and yet they are used so little.

Saturday, 23rd April 2011

Posted by on 23 Apr 2011 | Tagged as: Archery, Trying, but failing, to fly

The forecast for today was all over the place in terms of wind and we had considered going up to the Peaks, but a chat with others had us decide against it. Too much chance of thunderstorms and if you went XC, you’d probably just fly into the front anyway.

Here the forecast changed and started to indicate that it would be west in the afternoon, so we decided to go to archery for the first time this year and then try to fly later. Given that we would still be in the same (crap) airmass as we have been for the whole week, I wasn’t too optimistic. Driving over the Long Mynd to the archery club in Stretton the wind was north, but very light, with the usual haze. What we didn’t know was that there was a longbow competition at the club, so no shooting for us with recurve bows. They did encourage us to have a go though and we were lent a couple of bows by the very nice Rupert.

It’s very different from shooting recurve. You don’t have a sight, have to balance the arrow on your knuckle and I found it harder to pull than our more flexible bows. Still, it’s a far more pure form of archery and it was really great to get a chance to have a go. All the longbow men hoped they had couple of recruits to the other side, but I’ll need to have another go before I comsider investing in another bow. I did find it a bit distressing though to shoot at a target with moles on it!

By 1pm, we couldn’t stand the sky any more and left to see if the wind had turned west. Much to our amazement, it had gone strongish east, so we went home to do some gardening and wait to see what would happen. Viv and Phil were at Corndon and reported the wind on and soarable, but they didn’t fancy it without any locals around. It was a good call. We heard the first clap of thunder about 45 minutes later, coming from the direction of Corndon. It stormed/rained from then until after 6pm.

See photos of today.

Friday, 22nd April 2011

Posted by on 23 Apr 2011 | Tagged as: Trying, but failing, to fly

Another high pressure hazy day. Wind forecasts were very contradictory and we expected some thundery showers later on, so we were hoping this would break the inversion and give us some cumulus for a while. We originally thought of going to Bache, but after a report of hazy skies, weak thermals, strong inversion, we decided to stay local and go to Corndon. If it was rubbish we could always go to archery instead.

The wind went from gentle to strongish pretty quickly and it was on the SE face of Corndon. Steve Pym was already flying and Mark had just finished a tandem, but it seemed breezy and as we were chatting wave bars set up. Of all the things, I wasn’t expecting wave today. They got bigger as we waited and started extending out into the valley ahead as well. When high cloud also came in, Mark had a short flight but landed as he felt there was too much lift around. We could no longer assess what was above us and with storms forecast for later we decided to abandon the flying and do something else.

We got to the bottom of the hill and then the sky rapidly cleared, but the wind picked up. We couldn’t resist the temptation and drove back up, collecting all the wings we’d just driven down for people back up. By the time we got out of the car it was completely sunny, with just wave cloud and haze downwind. But it was windy.

Mark, David, Gwyn, Steve, Alan and John launched, but it looked rough. Lots of pitching of gliders, small (and one not so) collapses and sometimes zero penetration in the air made me decided to leave it for a better (and safer) day. Unfortunately, the fact that mixing wind, wave, thermals and cunims (albeit in the distance) doesn’t make for good flying conditions was proved by one pilot. Hope he gets well soon.

It did storm late afternoon/early evening, so we didn’t even go do archery. Hope we lose this damn airmass soon!

Monday, 18th April 2011

Posted by on 19 Apr 2011 | Tagged as: Trying, but failing, to fly

Geoff writes: Judith is still sulking so I’ll do this blog post.

We were pretty optimistic about the day, with the only problem being deciding whether to drive the 55 miles to the Malverns, or the five miles to Corndon. In general, in an easterly, we prefer the Malverns – you can ridge soar it till a thermal comes through, and there are more pilots there usually, so lots of wind dummies. So in spite of a nice looking sky here – though there was a breeze in the garden – we set set off to the Malverns.

The closer we got, the more haze, more cloud, and less sun there was. In the end, we stopped about 16 miles from the Malverns, and phoned up Ian and Martin, who were both there. The conclusion was that the chances of lauching were minimal, because of the strong winds there; and the chances of an XC were minimal too, because of the lousy sky.

We checked with Mark Leavesley, and the sky at Corndon was still good, so we turned around to go there, expecting the sky to clear on the way. It didn’t, the clag and haze was spreading northward, as was the wind. We got to Craven Arms, and the chance of flying seemed very remote, so we gave up and went for tea with Graeme and Odette, then home to do some gardening.

In fact, there were some XCs at the Malverns, but just one thermal jobs, which, given the wind, amounted to 20 – 30 km. We almost certainly would not have launched because of the wind. So we probably made the right decision.

As Dave T says below, the Mynd area is really having a terrible season so far this year.

Judith writes: I’m not actually sulking, just a little amazed that the forecast could be so wrong. So here’s the pressure chart for the day:


So a little wind, but hardly 25mph or more!

Soundings:

Where’s the cloud?

And RASP:

So how come it was grey, overcast and howling? Arrgghhh!

Thursday, 7th April 2011

Posted by on 07 Apr 2011 | Tagged as: Trying, but failing, to fly

Geoff writes: it was on at the Long Mynd all day today. It started off quite cloudy, and there was definitely some wave around, and though some people were flying we were in no rush to go up, having to deal with some stuff around the house. Later the sun came out, and the wind picked up a bit more. We eventually went out mid-afternoon, as some people (Dave and Martin in particular) were getting reasonably high – though base was less than 3000 feet (not metres) above sea level.

People were flying off and on most of the day, though there were some periods when no-one was flying, because of the winds being a bit top end. But it was fine for people who like strong wind flying. Really, I should have taken the hang glider, it was a fine day for that, but there were no HGs out at all, and just a dozen or so paragliders.

No-one went XC, base too low really, though the sky did get better later on. But at least it was flyable, though in the end we didn’t bother – the wind never really droppped, and we didn’t really fancy gale hanging.

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