Judith's blog

Rain in the morning, but then it cleared up. It was probably flyable for hang gliders, although very windy. We went to do some archery and had a really good session. There is a temporary airspace restriction due to the Fairford air tattoo, which this year affects the Long Mynd sites. At 2.05pm, we saw the first jets crossing the Church Stretton valley. These were followed by several more groups, some flying over the Lawley and Caer Caradoc. Impressive, but you wouldn’t want to be in the air at the time.

In the evening I went to Liverpool with Michaela to see Counting Crows. It was fantastic. Brilliant birthday present, thanks Mich!

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The arctic June weather continues. We had pretty much written off today, what with a forecast of howling gales and plenty of rain. However, Nigel Rue insisted on the Beyond Extreme forum that it would be flyable on the Long Mynd today and he was right. People started flying about 9am, so we sent out a 3jam. I sent out an update about 5 minutes later reporting the drizzle which had just started. It was going to be that kind of day…

We got to the Mynd in time for the comp briefing. Most people had gone home and only 29 people signed to fly the task. They set a 31km task to Morville, with a turn point at Black Knoll and then on to Wenlock Edge, so basically two ridge runs with two gaps to cross. Seemed like a good plan.

Calvo was hoping to be able to have a second task later if the sky cleared up. The window was going to open super fast to get everyone on course to allow for the second round in the afternoon and we all got our gear out and I signed to free fly the task. We could see rain pushing in to the south end of the ridge (the turn point) so the launch window was postponed. James D. flew tandem with an Ozzie relative, and Marra had a little fly too. It was off to the south and getting a little breezy by this point.

Twenty minutes later the window opened and most pilots took off, but a lot of people didn’t seem to go anywhere very fast. WSW or SW can be deceptive on the Mynd. It seems less windy on the ground than it is in the air and the airflow is cleaner on launch than in the bowls. You can also get rotor in the gully by the road coming up the the front of the hill. This is what happened to a few people who pushed along from launch low. Several had collapses and the task was stopped within 5 minutes of the window opening. A rebrief was organised for 2pm, with a view of going to Clatter if the sky improved and the wind dropped.

We went off to Church Stretton to do some archery. We shot about 60 arrows and were getting nicely warmed up when the rain started. Ho hum. We packed up and went to the briefing, not intending to trail out to Clatter ourselves. They binned the day at 2.15pm, and it has been raining off an on ever since, and it’s still windy.

Last day of the comp tomorrow, so the weather should improve soon.

See photos of today.

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A windy but sunny day. Geoff and I went to do some archery for a couple of hours and then went home to complete some of the briefing notes for the Triple X festival. We got there in the evening and went to the staff briefing. This allowed us to get a good pitch in the festival field and we set up camp. The bands were warming up and sound checking and all the festival staff and helpers were letting their hair down before the big rush starts Friday. The atmosphere was really good, so we bopped away the evening.

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I didn’t intend to go flying, but saw people doing well at the Mynd just after 11, so sent out a 3jam. I still wasn’t going to go, but as I was driving past to go shooting (archery) it seemed pretty good. I only had the PG in the car, so got ready, and clipped in – and the wind promptly picked up to a bit beyond where I’m happy on a PG. People in the air were still flying (and one went xc), but it was low 20s mph on launch, so I didn’t get off. Those flying landed (some going backwards), the wind didn’t drop, so I went off to shoot, and had a pleasant hour there.

On the way back, the wind had dropped, but gone very north, so I gave it up and came home. I should have had the HG with me, the two there, Nick and Pete, flew for some hours – but then I wasn’t really intending to fly.

Oh, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY JUDITH!

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The forecast was quite poor for today and we decided to have a rest day, do a bit of work, and some archery. Early afternoon, the sun came out, and there were nice cumulus everywhere, light south easterly. I thought about going flying, and dithered for a while, but Judith wasn’t feeling too well, and I was tired having flown the previous four days; and tomorrow is a good forecast for the Mynd – west for the first time since 1st May. So we stuck with plan A, and went to archery. Later on, the cloud did come in, and the sun disappeared.

However, it was flyable (according to 3jam messages) for most of the day at the Malverns, and, also Mark Leavesley (who Judith met this evening to talk about the Long Mynd Club flying arrangements for the XXX Festival) saw someone flying at Corndon for much of the day; I think that for a few hours at least, if you were in the right place, it was probably a good flying day, with some XC potential.

Tomorrow, west. Forecasts differ as to wind strength; might be OK for PGs, might be a bit strong for them.

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Judith: We had an active day, starting off with archery. It was pretty cloudy in Church Stretton, and we weren’t sure about the flying, but we took the PGs anyway. We then got a call from Graeme saying it was flyable at Llangollen, so off we went, arriving just after 2pm. Strong wind, but just compression, fine in the air. I launched from lower down the hill, and within a few minutes was 1800′ over. There wasn’t much drift in the thermal, so I was only marginally behind the masts. Cloudbase was about 2100′ ATO at the time, but I lost the thermal and then had to decide whether to head back to the ridge or go over the back.

It wasn’t much of a decision… I went on a glide. It’s always an adventure and you never know what’s going to happen next. What happened next was not a lot! I flew over a few guys learning to paraglide (they all stopped what they were doing to watch me fly over), I heard a beep over a farm and turned back but couldn’t find the thermal, so flew on. I saw a buzzard and got very exited only to find him fly off. I landed in a field next to a farmer spraying he gave me a cheery wave and Geoff called to say he was on his way. At this point I had no idea where I was, so when I got out of the field to walk to the village I flagged down the first car and he took me to Weston Rhyn, which was a bit out of the way for him so extremely kind of him to do so. Geoff came 3 minutes after I arrived and whipped me back up the hill. We flew again, and I got high again, but the sky downwind looked so poor it didn’t seem worth going over the back again.

Geoff was in the air as well and we could see wave bars forming upwind. It got quite bouncy at times, so we landed, packed up and raced to the supermarket to cater for the dinner we had with Martin and Ali later.

See photos of today.

See video of Clive launching the tandem.

See Andrew Donnison’s Youtube video of today.

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It seemed breezy from the word go and the forecast also said rain and that the wind direction would change by lunchtime. Not very promising…

We decided to can the day and did some archery. Since we have come back my shooting has been rubbish. It was only yesterday that I realised that my left arm and shoulder muscles had got so weak that my draw wasn’t anywhere near as strong as it needs to be. I worked on a full pull today and got better, only to find that my release suffers as a result. I’m also grabbing the bow. So a big list of things to work on to improve. I started the training by going to the gym and tried to work on the required muscles. They feel like jelly tonight.

:o(

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