Trying, but failing, to fly
Archived posts from this Category
Sunday, 20th June 2010
Posted by Judith on 20 Jun 2010 | Tagged as: Trying, but failing, to fly
Everyone was talking Llangollen today. There had been lots of conferring yesterday evening and it appeared that nearly every XC pilot in the north of England was going to be in attendance. As one person put it when they arrived on site: “It’s like a comp!”. Despite the forecast wind, Llangollen was completely dead and the sky didn’t look too promising. We waited around for things to improve, when out of nowhere the wind started gusting, just as Jean-Luc had predicted. Lots of people lobbed off, but it didn’t look very much fun in the air. Kai and a local pilot made an early dash over the back, but it was a long hard slog for all the subsequent lot to get over the back. Most landed at about 25 – 30km.
We decided to switch sites to get a better chance. Reports from Sarn and Corndon had it sounding not very good, so we looked at Long Mountain on the way. We were stalked round the field by some curious young cattle and spent ages guarding our gear from cow slobber. David McK launched first, but didn’t get very high. Wayne and Frank were off next, but it looked rough. This was confirmed when Frank shouted down “It’s horrible!”.
The wind just steadily dropped, so most of us elected to save ourselves the £5 fee and Geoff, Michaela, Wayne and I went off to the pub instead.
Saturday, 19th June 2010
Posted by Judith on 20 Jun 2010 | Tagged as: Archery, Trying, but failing, to fly
The wind played cat and mouse with us today. I was convinced it would be blown out and in our garden it was howling. I was looking forward to another day off, but a phone call from the DSC lot at Corndon, promising 7mph winds, had us scuttling off to fly. It was really windy next to the HG landing field, so we sat at the bottom and observed the conditions for a while. During that time the only person to have their glider out was dragged while trying to take off, so we called them to find out that the wind had dramatically increased to 25 – 30mph. So we tootled off to do some gardening. Graeme did phone to say it was flyable at Sarn, but I was in the middle of cutting the hedge and the wind seemed to be getting more gusty where we live, so we decided to go to archery instead. Graeme got 2000′ above, so maybe that was a mistake.
Archery was fun, although I am hopeless with a light club bow now, and managed to make myself look like a mega-numpty by setting up the bow wrongly and Trevor had to come and fix it for me mid-shoot. Our first BBQ later.
Sunday, 13th June 2010 (UK)
Posted by Judith on 14 Jun 2010 | Tagged as: Trying, but failing, to fly
Geoff writes: a poor forecast for the day, with rain for the afternoon. People were flying on the Mynd in the morning, but I did some gardening. Eventually, I did go up to have a look, which was when the rain started, so no flying for me. I didn’t miss much.
Picked up Judith and the others from the airport later.
Saturday, 5th June 2010 (UK)
Posted by Geoff on 05 Jun 2010 | Tagged as: Trying, but failing, to fly
Geoff writes: a really disappointing day. I thought the forecast was quite good, reasonable westerly breeze from lunchtime, nice and sunny. In the event, it was extremely light, and mostly south to south west. There were some thermals, as indicated by the accuracy guys flying through them, but very weak and small. Even Kai, who before launching said he never bottom landed the Mynd, did this time. I only saw one bird all day. There was very little sun, and the sky gradually clouded over more or less completely, before the wind turned east and it started to rain.
Bit of a waste of a day, though the accuracy competition did OK, managing plenty of tasks.
And I’m contantly surprised by the huge number of people totally unable to read in the UK. We have a big fuck-off sign at the entrance to our club field at the Mynd, saying it’s an airfield, no unauthorised people allowed in, no dogs, etc. For the usual insurance and safety reasons, and it’s not like the Long Mynd is short of land for people to sit or walk on. But there was a constant stream of people today just ignoring it, and blithely walking on to the field, including at least one group of about 15 people off a minibus. Amazing.
Friday, 4th June 2010 (UK)
Posted by Geoff on 04 Jun 2010 | Tagged as: Archery, Trying, but failing, to fly
Geoff writes: having made a big mistake yesterday not going to the Malverns, because it was forecast windy and going SE, I thought today – on the same forecast – I would go – which was also a big mistake, because this time it did go SE. As I arrived at the Malverns, someone was walking down saying it was too far south, and no-one else was there anyway. Following a detour via Castlemorton – no-one there either! – I went back to Corndon, under an improving sky, which boded very well for XCs off the SE face there. I arrived to see Graeme landing, and Dave Broughton was also there, about to launch.
Graeme did say, as I was walking over, that some rain showers were forecast, but I said no chance! A few minutes after arriving at launch, the epic sky over-developed, and there were some really big, black, clouds, threatening rain, or at least very nasty lift. After chatting a while under a worsening sky, I gave up, and went to archery – where it did, in fact, rain for a while.
Oh well, that’s two days in a row messed up through bad decisions. Really, I should have gone to Bache (SSE), early. Hopefully, I will get it right tomorrow at the Mynd – and that is likely to be the last chance for a while as rain is coming in.
Monday, 24th May 2010
Posted by Judith on 24 May 2010 | Tagged as: Archery, Trying, but failing, to fly
I have been saying to people all week that today would be the day, but of course the forecast had been getting progressively more dodgy as the day got closer. The original plan to go to Llangollen changed to the Peaks and by last night it was clear it would be too windy there. So this morning the forecasts were all over the place again, and largely contradicting each other.
My take was that it would be an early day, hopefully on the Long Mynd, before it became too windy and NW, and possibly over-developed. Wendy Windblows was giving WNW all morning, very light, so we set off up the hill at 10.45am. We got there and it was anywhere between NW and NE. This wasn’t a particular issue, just a matter of swapping location, but there were both cumulus and wave bars forming all around us.
After much debating and faffing, we decided that the wave was going to make going XC a little tricky, so we canned the day and went off to Bishops Castle to shop for some lunch. As we came out of the Co-op and opened the car doors, a dust devil ripped down the high street and filled our car with crap and then whizzed on down the hill. Obviously a very, very thermic day!
By the time we had finished lunch, the wave had completely disappeared and we seriously considered that we had made a mistake not going flying. I was still concerned about the forecast increasing wind, so we did a bit of gardening before finally deciding what to do with the day. As the afternoon progressed, the wind seemed to be picking up, so we wrote off the day and went to archery instead.
You could tell it was windy… shooting at 50 yards, we were having to compensate for the wind and to say we were hopeless would be an understatement. At one point we had to get the metal detector out because one of us missed the target and we couldn’t find the arrow anywhere. Luckily, it won’t shred the mower when the field gets groomed tomorrow.
Tuesday, 11th May 2010
Posted by Geoff on 11 May 2010 | Tagged as: Archery, Trying, but failing, to fly
Geoff writes: we had hoped to go flying today, but the forecast wasn’t that brilliant this morning, showers throughout the day, so we canned it. We had second thoughts about lunchtime when we got a call from Mick at Llangollen saying it was sunny there, just waiting for some clouds to clear, so we set off. But there were big clouds on the way, so we called again. Mick still hadn’t flown at that point – he was waiting for the big black snow cloud to pass over. We decided that even if we did fly, we would be dodging showers, and not want to go XC given the sky we were under, so went home, loaded up the archery stuff, and set off for the archery field. On the way, the sky seemed to be improving, so we phoned Mick again …. this time he was waiting for a rain cloud to pass over.
So at this point we really gave up the idea of flying and went to archery – interrupted by rain, but Judith had a master class from another Geoff on how to make a string for a bow. We didn’t shoot much, but we did learn a lot.
Driving back, the weather was worse, lots of rain clouds in the distance – though probably later on, in the evening, it might have been flyable when the clouds cleared – actually, it was probably flyable on and off all day, just not a sky you would want to get high in, or go XC.