Judith's blog

If agonising over where to go flying was a competitive sport, Geoff and I could be top class. So the forecast (as we understood it) was SE going S, SW in the evening. Possibly getting cloudy in the afternoon. Our options were Bache, the Wrekin or the Gyrn. So here was our reasoning:

The Wrekin: Kai made a convincing argument, but the proximity of Shawbury airspace would limit our downwind XC ability and just because he can fly round it or do a triangle on a comp wing doesn’t mean we can.

Bache: It’s a load of hassle getting the key and Steve Lowe said the sky was messy and it was SW and strongish at Kington.

The Gyrn: Mick reported that the sky hadn’t sorted itself out yet and the XC potential isn’t fantastic.

Steve had suggested Elan Valley and Piers confirmed it was off to the south a bit, but looking good. So we dismissed all the original options and plumped for Elan Valley. It was indeed looking good – all the way to Rhayader, where the sky started to look dark and ominous. We would have to get into the air and downwind fast to outrun it. Once on the hill the sky was no longer a problem though… the wind was 90 degrees off, so no flying anyway. Graeme and Dave B. also turned up and given the sky we had just driven through, we decided to switch sites and went to Camlo.

We’ve tried and failed to fly Camlo every time we’ve been there, mainly due to strong winds. This time, the winds were so light we didn’t think we could stay up and the sky downwind was good, but getting more threatening ahead. By the time we had our gliders out the wind had gone off and picked up. Graeme had a three minute flight where he didn’t get above the hill and then slope landed over the fence. Dave had to walk some paces down the hill to launch as the wind was still picking up and once in the air zoomed one way and crawled back the other before landing near the bottom of the hill and having to walk back up. At this point Graeme and Dave decided it was high time to tackle the daily crossword and we looked at the approaching rain and started packing up.

The sky was rubbish all the way to the Long Mynd, where it was looking great and the sail planes were having a lovely time. Kai probably had the nicest flight of all of us. Should have listened to him.

We went to archery instead.

See photos of today.

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Geoff writes: the original plan was to go to the Malverns again, assuming the forecast was still ok this morning. I woke up to a bit of cloud, and a not very stunning RASP, but eventually set out, though the sky was quickly getting worse. I drove a few miles south, and it got even worse – some quite big clouds, almost no sun, and worse further south, and over to the west. In the end I canned it and turned round. It was a lousy sky.

I have an increasingly bad feeling this was a terrible mistake! Within an hour or so, the sky had cleared, it was streeting, and looked an epic day. At the time of writing this post, 8.00pm, nothing yet is posted in the league. That either means no-one went XC, or at least didn’t do anything worth posting; or, much more likely I think, everyone went a long way and they aren’t back yet. This could well be the third 100km day in five days.

Still, I did do some shooting at the archery field….. not very accurately, since I was too busy looking at the streets above me, even at 5.30 pm.

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Geoff writes: I didn’t feel particularly like flying today, though clearly it was going to be a pretty good day, good clouds, very thermic.  The obvious place to go was the Peaks – nil wind and SW here is a real pain, whereas in the Peaks, it usually means a pretty good day. But I couldn’t be bothered with the drive, a 200 mile round trip, just for one day, since tomorrow is likely to be SE, a poor direction in the Peaks – nice for flying, no good for XC because of airspace. So I decided to have a quiet day in, but Mark Leavesley then phoned saying it was a nice 15mph on the SE face at Corndon. If it had been any further, I wouldn’t have bothered, but Kai was also going, so I thought it worth the 15 minute trip out.

But it was predictably pretty poor. The wind was back to very light, and what there was, was SW rather than SE. There is a face on Corndon which sort of works in that direction, but today, in spite of the epic sky, it didn’t. Both Mark and Kai tried numerous times, but didn’t get up. In the end, I canned the day and left. Kai also left a bit later, but Mark did, eventually, get up and have a good day.

I’ve not looked at the league results yet, but I’ll be amazed if there aren’t some really good XCs from the Peaks. […and just heard from Andy Wallis, who did 130km High Wheeldon to Cleethorpes].

I’ll be out tomorrow though….

[Judith not feeling too good in France, so probably no comp update today].

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Everyone was raving about the forecast in the run-up to today, since there was possibly some sunshine around. As the day got closer it was looking less promising, and I suspected a similar day to Sunday, with lots of cloud. The actual forecast was the catch-all “sunny intervals”. The actual weather was grey skies all day.

Our choice for the day was to go flying or go on holiday, so we decided to wait until lunchtime and see if it would develop into a flying day. I edited another webcast and Geoff did some work and the sky stayed cloudy, but then Kai called to say he had gone XC from the Wrekin and it was really thermic. So we got our stuff and rushed out. On the Long Mynd it was too far off, so we headed for the Lawley. Once we were over the top of the Long Mynd I still couldn’t see the ‘good sky’ Kai had talked about. It was wall-to-wall grey cloud, with only a very few embedded cumulus.

There didn’t seem to be much wind around, but since the Lawley gets blown out really easily, we assumed there would be plenty of breeze. Wrong. We walked up to the third pimple and it was still only 4mph and every bird within 2 miles was flapping. The fields below still haven’t been cut, so the landing options are limited, so in the end we conceded that it just wasn’t flyable and went off to archery instead.

Driving back over the Long Mynd we found Rich, Wayne and Ali and a strong westerly breeze. Rich said it was rough, so we just carried on home. Just not our day!

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Geoff writes: Windy and cloudy. The BP Cup tried to have a task, and went to Clatter, and we decided to go with them, not actually expecting to fly. And we didn’t, too windy by far. So we came back home, did a few jobs, then went out to the Inn on the Green, where the comp is based, and had a few drinks and took part in Cris Miles’ excellent quiz. A pleasant evening.

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Windy and wavy from early on, so we went to watch the hang gliding comp at the Long Mynd and managed to catch up with more old friends. The task was Shifnal for the club class and Stoke for the open class. The wind was off to the south on launch and even more so in the air. The wave also made it very bouncy. Some people elected to go down to the bottom, but there was a slow trickle of pilots going over the back, once the sky had improved.

At lunchtime most people had gone, so we headed home to finish off the LMSC newsletter, which needed to go out today or tomorrow. It’s now with everyone who’s a current member and those luddites who don’t have a computer will get their’s tomorrow.

Rain for the first time in ages this evening. I’d forgotten that it can look grey in this country.

Geoff writes: in the evening we went to music night at the Bridges, with Tony and Sonia. Tony is an old friend from many years ago, when we set up Coda International, an international development agency working in Southern Africa and Central America.  Tony later founded, and runs, Computer Aid, a large NGO sending computer equipment to developing countries.

Music night was excellent – most of it – with Beth finishing off with a four song set. Brilliant stuff.

See photos of today.

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Have I mentioned I don’t like nil-wind days? Martin and Kai were off to the Wrekin, but we decided to have a look at the Long Mynd first. The cloud was developing a lot and the valley, which had been in sun all morning, was suddenly nearly completely shady and the wind, what there was of it, was south. We watched a sail plane take off, find nothing and land again after 5 minutes. The birds were all flapping and we were both feeling very lazy, so we took the easy option and went to archery.

By 1pm, the sail planes were still not doing much, so we decided to have another look at the Long Mynd on the way home, but by this time it was SE, so we went home to do the gardening, still watching the birds flapping.

We’ve been in a war of attrition with the rose bay willow herb I stupidly let grow last year (“Oh, look, pretty pink flowers!”). Little did I know I invited the seed of the devil into our place. Today we stepped up the ante and it was trench warfare. We dug up the whole flower bed to get rid of all the roots (one of which was longer than I am tall). Now we just have to get it out of the lawn without a mechanical digger. While we were covered in muck, Kai phoned to say he did a 50km triangle (152km with multipliers). He’s top of the league again. 707km in total and it’s only June. Blimey!

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