Judith's blog

Judith writes: Third task today. Lots of different weather forecasts, but stronger west wind today, so a 116km task to Segovia. I got off ok and thermalled along the ridge. The big promise I made myself was not to go anywhere until I was high and to be patient! It was hard work getting up and I scrabbled about at ridge height for ages working my way along trying to find lift. I got it just before the start point, climbed up and was on my way. I made it over the pass via a circuitous route and found a weak and drifty thermal on the other side. As I was drifting over a ridge I saw an open glider with the pilot lying down not moving. I radioed in to HQ to tell them the situation and then flew over to have a look to check if he was ok. Once I was circling lower the pilot stood up and waved at me. Damn!

You should get up and bundle up your wing immediately so this kind of situation doesn’t happen. I then had to go hunting for another thermal and got a weak climb, but I was then in the centre of the valley. My last ditch attempt was to fly to a black field and I hit the thermal very low (maybe 150 feet off the deck), but on turning in it, I stopped dead and sunk out. On the ground the wind was howling. 25km, so disappointed, but at least my attitude was better today and I made it over the pass!

Terrible retrieve. Geoff called me to chat about my flight and this meant I ran out of  credits, so after a 3km walk in the sun I then had to walk an extra 2km to a petrol station to get more credits to call the retrieve bus. Another lesson learnt.

Not much news of from the goal yet. Kai and Craig did 55km and Dave Thomson is in goal.

Geoff writes: there’s gratitude for you. I phone her and she complains about the cost!

Bit windy here today, ESE, supposed to be going south as the day went on. That didn’t really happen, and Corndon was the best bet, in retrospect (or maybe the Malverns?). But Dave Broughton did phone from Corndon to say it was a bit gusty, and he was on his own, so didn’t fly. I did some work, and was about to go to archery, when Martin Knight phoned to say it was flyable where he was, so off we went (I picked up Michaela on the way). In the end I had about 40 minutes or so of evening soaring as the front approached, so a lot better than nothing.

Tomorrow looks distinctly possible on the Mynd. Change to get a westerly.

And apparently, yet again, the task was stopped in the hang gliding comp in Laragne, because of “extreme gusty conditions at goal”.

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Geoff writes: as usual this summer, I made the wrong decision for the right reasons, going to Bache rather than the Gyrn (or the Peaks) because I thought it was going to rain there, at least at the Gyrn. Ended up on Bache on my own, and was thinking of just going to the Gyrn anyway – where they were flying – and Andy Johnson turned up, so I stayed (he’d been going to the Gyrn as well, and changed his mind). In the end, after various launches and short hops, I gave up and went home. Definitely the wrong place to be today.

Oh, and when Jonce was flying – whilst I was walking back up – a Hercules flew past him just behind Bache, banking as it went by. It obviously thought he was worth taking another look at, because Andy landed, and the Hercules came back right over launch, at most 200′ above.

Judith writes: The second task today… 125km race to goal, via the same turnpoint as the day before. The forecast was for windier conditions and possible storms. This put me in a less positive mood than the day before. I got the early bus and as I was getting ready the wind was picking up. A huge dust devil came through and I was getting nervous. Once the window opened, people lobbed off, but the gusty conditions made for ‘interesting’ take-offs and plenty of bounce once you pulled away from the ridge. I got off ok and decided that with the strength of the wind, it would be possible to soar along to the start and then get a thermal there to cross the pass. Whenever you assume something will happen, the chances are it won’t. I bimbled along the ridge and then got completely distracted from what I was doing by seeing what had been a disorganised rabble just suddenly turning and gliding like a huge wall away from me. The start was open, but the sight was so impressive, I forgot to thermal!

Once I got my act together again, I thermalled along, but it was really tricky and I got distracted a second time watching Kirsty being sucked down a gully. She hit so much sink, that I was sure she was going to hit a tree. She didn’t and found a thermal in the valley. She fought hard to get back up, but landed in the end.

I decided to try what was described to us as the guaranteed trigger, but couldn’t cross a ridge, so landed near Villafranca in the same field as Cris Miles. We had a great afternoon, eating grapefruit and being generally silly. Turns out there were few big names who bombed before the pass… Steve Ham included. What was excellent, was that Martin Dockerill did his first 100km flight today!

Dave Thomson went on a photo expedition and eventually decided to fly the task. He was at 3300m AMSL 13km out from goal and missed it by 7km – big headwind. Kai is leading amongst the Brits after the second task.

The big incident to day was Nicky had to throw her chute, as she had a big collapse and a subsequent cascade. She got down ok in a corn field, but was dragged on landing. She is fine although a little bruised. Chute is re-packed and her wing has been checked, so she should be ok for tomorrow.

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Geoff writes: Judith is having trouble with her internet connection in Piedrahita, but will try and update the blog later from someone else’s computer. There was a 100k task today, the first of the comp, she did 30-odd km, but chose to land (as did others) because of the cloud development.

And in the UK, more hot humid weather, with occasional rain, and some strong winds. Work and archery was the agenda for today, though I did drive out early evening to Corndon just on the off-chance. But there was no-one else there I could see, and it started spitting again anyway as I arrived, and looked like it might start to rain harder. I gave up and went home.

There was also a task at the hang gliding comp in Laragne, but it was stopped part way through because of overdevelopment. Seems like everywhere is having the same weather pattern.

Judith writes: The first task today! Very exciting. I got the first bus up and got ready in a fairly relaxed fashion, which masked some of my nerves. With all the stories of ballistic thermals and rough conditions, I was very apprehensive. The task was a 100km race to goal via a turn point near Avila. Start was 7km from the take off with a start time of 1.30pm. I had promised myself that I wouldn’t be last off, and get in with an early gaggle. Despite the clouds, people were launching but struggling, so it seemed daft to go. We did some dancing on launch and then I decided it was about time I got ready. By the time I was ready to get off, I was the only one left. Ooops.

I lobbed off, got straight into a thermal, got to cloudbase at 3000m and then glided off to the start gate, arriving there with two minutes to spare. Although it would be nice to be able to claim this was a stroke of pure genius, it was complete beginner’s luck. I got to the pass and caught up with John Stevenson, Adrian Thomas and Ruud. They got into a better climb and I searched around trying to find lift. The tree covered ridge wasn’t working for me and the others glided off. I was determined to be patient and not to get gaggle drag, so I stuck to my searching and didn’t follow them low over the pass. Having exhausted the north side of the pass and found nothing, I tried the quarry. I hit a really good thermal and climbed back to cloudbase before crossing. Once over the pass, I then had to decided which route to take – the flatter, more chance of convergence south side (which was in sun), the valley or the northerly side which has the higher ridges. I went with the sun and headed along the south side. Typically, as everyone had told me it was very sinky over the pass. I got to nearly 300 feet above the gound and was thinking that it was all very nice to get over the pass, but that was obviously it for me for the day. My last chance of lift was over some rising scrubby ground in sunshine, and I hit a horrible rough thermal which made my wing collapse all over the place. I stuck with it and got up again, being joined by a few others. Half way through the thermal I decided that I needed to shift a little and got into a better climb, back high. A cloud on my left was getting really big, and I radioed in to say that the sky was over developing. As I glided in the direction of Avila a street of cumulus was forming in front of us blocking our path. They were getting bigger and bigger and I was debating what to do. People were radioing from positions ahead on the course saying that they were being sucked into cloud and in strong climbs and having to spiral.

John Stevenson and I tried  to fly along the line to try to fly around the development, but it wasn’t possible. I chose to land rather than carrying on into a sky which I knew wasn’t nice to be under. I burned off a load of altitude and got down fine. One Dutch guy got sucked into the cloud and spent ages getting out.

On the retrieve bus, everyone’s first question was ‘Did you land by choice?’ just because we all wanted to confirm that our decision was correct. Further ahead in the course it was ok, although a cell developed near goal and one did develop near us too. It was raining when we drove back to Piedrahita.

Good decision to land, I think.

What did I learn today?

1) Don’t get gaggle drag – don’t follow people if you don’t understand their decision.

2) Learn to glide more efficiently.

3) Don’t suppose everyone knows more than you. Especially if you are at the back of the field.

4) Don’t expect to always launch and thermal straight up and get the perfect start!

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We had an elapsed time race over three turnpoints. The wind was north when we got to the site and a task was set to the south. First turnpoint was at the lower north launch, then Col St Jean, across to the highest point of the ridge just to the south of Chabre and then landing in Ribiers. To make the launch more manageable with 120 pilots they split the field and all 1 and 1-2 gliders had to go to the lower launch. 2 and 2-3 gliders could launch from the top or elect to the go to the lower launch too. The trade off for the extra hassle for the 1s and 1-2s was that you got the turn point without having to fly to it. I chose to drive to the turn point. This was based on a tactical decision. The sky was looking better to the west; I didn’t want to fly the extra 3 km there and back and I didn’t want to have the oncoming traffic of people launching from the north as well as the 2s and 2-3s who were having to fly there and back. This meant having to pack up my gear and obviously this interrupted my flow. When I got to the bottom N take off I realised I had left my flight deck and instruments behind. What a plonker! Wendy the retrieve driver took me back up and I raced back to launch. Because we were launching one at a time, this meant I was way down the queue, but the sky wasn’t working that well and there seemed less rush. Read more»

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We got up early, but missed our chance to get a place in the mini-busses. I ended up having to go on the coach, which takes you to the bottom of the hill, by the gorge. You then have to wait whilst the mini-busses come back down to collect you. I was on the second last bus up. We could see on the drive up that the sky was overdeveloping and that the task, if we would get one would be cancelled soon after the task opened. Speed was the essence. I got to take-off shortly before the briefing, not even having time to open out my glider and check it over. You have 20 minutes after the briefing, so I was very rushed to get ready and didn’t have time to relax and think about the task before having to launch. Because we all knew the widow was short, everyone launched quickly, so much so that they had to close the launch window so there wouldn’t be any accidents.

The task was an elapsed time race over 2 turnpoints. Chabre to St Genie (the volcano), Upaix and then back to the camp site. Read more»

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The weather forecast was ok for the morning, but it was due to storm at lunchtime. Ruth and I got up early to get a good place in the minibus queue. We were up on launch early and got ourselves organised. I have learnt loads about programming my GPS, and am just about mastering the comp routes. From the development to the east we knew there would not be a big window to fly the task and we were briefed on the level system. Level 1: good conditions; level 2: caution; level 3: task is stopped. The task was a 29km elapsed time around 3 turnpoints. We had to fly west along the ridge to the first turn point at 4km, the fly to Orpierre, then to St Genie (the volcano), then home to the campsite landing.

I launched reasonably early but struggled to get a good climb. Eventually I got a thermal over launch as another pilot got a core close to me. Everyone else chose his core, which suited me fine. All those who chose him didn’t get up and when I got to the top of my climb I flew across to him and we climbed up to near base together. I was singing nah-nah-nah-nah-nah to those who chose him. Ha! I set of on the the glide to the first turn point but decided to fly very conservatively. There were people struggeling on the ridge and I didn’t want to be one of them, so I topped up in thermals on the way. Gillian was with me on the glide along, but left me for dust on her Sigma 6. I bagged the second turn point high and glided towards Orpierre. I topped up in the valley and could see the development over Orpierre getting big. A couple of pilots were getting high ahead of me and I could see that I would be able to take a good glide to the turnpoint and beyond. I would be in lift all the way and be at cloudbase as I left the area on the glide to the next turnpoint. Unfortunately, the task was cancelled as I hit the second turnpoint, so I didn’t get a chance to try out my strategic gliding. Read more»

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It rained yesteray, but Ruth and I have been adopted by the lovely Scottish lads, and they took us to St Vincent. When we got there it was still raining. We entertained ourselves with an olive stone spitting contest – distance was won by George and accuracy we couldn’t score because we were all so crap. Next came car park boules. In the rain…

We all traipsed off to Decathlon next and boy, did I not realise how lads can shop! We had to drag them out to the store!

Today the weather started off bad. Rain and low cloud. Jocky and Dave called an opimistic task and we went to Sederon. It was low cloud there, but a report of sun back at Chabre. We all drove back there, and it ws looking good, but cloud was developing fast. We went to the upper take off, only to be told move back to the lower north. When we got there, there was a huge storm developing and we were told the task was going to be a practise task only – launch if you want. We could only get off one at a time and a free flyer blocked the launch for 20 minutes by not launching in perfect conditions. The huge queue behind her didn’t lynch her when the launch window was closed due to the storm getting too close, which was surprising in the circumstances.

I didn’t fly. Tomorrow there is a chance of flying in the morning, then the forecast looks poor again. We’ll see. Our team jackets are causing a big stir. Someone asked us where beyond extreme was. I’m not sure myself, but hope I don’t find out flying tomorrow!

:o)

See photos of today.

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