Archery
Archived posts from this Category
Monday, 3rd May 2010
Posted by Judith on 03 May 2010 | Tagged as: Archery
Windy, but mostly sunny today, and really cold. Because it’s a holiday, we decided to go to archery early to avoid the crowds. A good plan that worked well until 1pm, when loads of people arrived. A couple of people shooting takes no time at all, a but a group works at the pace of the slowest, so there’s a fair bit of standing around, which is ok when your fingers don’t feel like they’re going to drop off any minute. It was useful practice, but I am looking forward to my new bow string arriving, so I can tune and get to know the bow properly.
Once we’d done shooting, it was off to do more DIY. Geoff has got the van sale-ready and I started painting the hallway. It was rapidly becoming my never-ending project, but I am hoping to have it done by Wednesday. The house will look like someone else’s.
At sunset the whole Long Mynd was bathed in this weird pink/orange light and was glowing as if on fire. The pictures don’t do it justice…
Thursday, 22nd April 2010
Posted by Geoff on 22 Apr 2010 | Tagged as: Archery, Flying
Geoff writes: another frustrating day. Sunny, thermic and absolutely nil wind. When there was occasional wind, a couple of miles an hour, it was SW, or WSW. We weren’t going to bother going out, but in the end we went to the Mynd at lunchtime, thinking the sun would bring it on. But nothing doing, so back home to do some jobs. Later on we had another go, when it was a bit more west, and had a few hops, but still nothing. It was blueing out anyway. Finally, we canned it and went to archery, knowing that people had got very high at the Malverns, where it was east, and almost certainly done well in the Peaks, where it was west with a nice breeze. As usual, we seemed to be stuck in the middle.
Update: and the longest flight listed so far is 168.9km turnpoint flight by Jake Herbert, from Wether Fell in Yorkshire to the east coast. I’m sure there’ll be a lot more flights to come in.
Tuesday, 20th April 2010
Posted by Geoff on 20 Apr 2010 | Tagged as: Archery, Trying, but failing, to fly
Geoff writes: a nice sunny day. The forecast was for it to be a bit too windy to fly, so we spent the morning doing various jobs, including some stuff for the LMSC AGM tomorrow night; then decided to go to archery, but, since it didn’t seem anywhere near as windy as forecast, put the gliders in, on the basis that we were driving past the Long Mynd anyway.
When we arrived at the Long Mynd, it seemed fine, a bit off to the north, but not too much, and easily paraglidable. So we waited a few minutes to see what would happen, and it quickly went more north, and picked up slightly. Had it stayed on we almost certainly would have flown, though we heard that Long Mountain – a site which is usually fine in strong winds – was more or less blown out. I’m pretty sure, though, had we been at the Long Mynd earlier, when it was a bit more westerly, we would have flown.
So we went to archery, where as usual the people there were incredibly helpful, helping Judith set up her new bow properly, lending me a more powerful one, etc. So a very pleasant few hours. And we haven’t quite forgotten everything from last year.
The wind did continue to pick up, and lots of wave bars appeared, so we did the right thing by not hanging around the Long Mynd on the off-chance it would drop.
And tonight Michaela is coming for dinner.
Thursday, 15th April 2010
Posted by Judith on 15 Apr 2010 | Tagged as: Archery, Flying
My first job this morning was going to be more steam inhaling, but we had no electricity. We called the emergency number (you have to listen to about two minutes of terms and conditions, info, etc. so great emergency line!) and they told us the power would be off until 4.30pm – they were cutting down trees, and we should have been notified. Might as well go out flying then…
We got a message from Pete Cook telling us it was still claggy at Corndon, so we took our time over our cafe breakfast. Once we headed up, the cloud was breaking and the wind seemed perfect. The walk up took me about twice as long as usual, with me wheezing my way up the little slope to the top of the hill.
The usual suspects soon assembled with Martin, Mick and Ian arriving, soon followed by the Barney bus full of DSC and Pennine pilots. We did the usual Corndon thing – someone launched, got up a little, everyone else launched, everyone got low, some top landed, some slope landed and slogged it back up. We did all get into a good thermal (well, it seemed like that at the time), but it petered out/we couldn’t work it and the only one to go with it was Mick, who took it over the back and went XC.
I landed on top, but running the glider forward to launch caused such a prolonged and painful coughing fit – which caused me to vomit – that I decided the day would have to be really, really good for me to make the effort to go XC. Everyone carried on trying and at one point Helen, Mark and Phil all went down and had to slog it back up the hill. Phil and Helen’s effort was rewarded when they hooked the only really decent thermal of the day and went with it. Helen got to Kerry and Phil further. The rest tried and tried, but the drift was too much for the weak thermals. I flew again, but only to land near the car.
We rushed off to try to get to archery on time to be able to see Tom the coach, so he could help me set up my new bow properly. The string is too long and I am using the wrong arrows and I have a list of other adjustments I need to make. There’s always something…
Wednesday, 7th April 2010
Posted by Judith on 08 Apr 2010 | Tagged as: Archery, Trying, but failing, to fly
Lots of people were getting excited about the flying today, but I thought it might be a bit cloudy/breezy. It was flyable at Long Mountain in the morning, but the sky was completely overcast at home and there was occasional drizzle. We decided instead to go to archery and set up my new bow. We got as far as the Long Mynd where it was very windy and raining, so we headed back to work for a few hours. On our second attempt the sky had cleared and if it hadn’t been so windy, would have been an excellent day.
When we get back to wherever we are living at the time, there is always a period of readjustment and trying to find all our stuff. Routines that are established are forgotten and there is always something that goes wrong. Geoff had forgotten that he owns a bow and no longer needs to hire one. I did lots of eye rolling, until I realised that I had brought my bow but had left my arrows at home. Forgetting 50% of your equipment is pretty rubbish!
Thankfully Norman turned up and let us into the club house so we could borrow arrows, etc. My new bow is completely different and I needed Norman’s help to assemble it, never mind check it over. It’s far more powerful than my old one and I pulled a muscle in the first 5 arrows that I shot. Norman gave me some homework to do with a stretchy band and a mirror, so I will be working home and on the field to get back to full draw. Ho hum.
Since the archery club is below Caer Caradoc, we tootled off to the Lawley for an evening flight. It’s always stronger there than elsewhere and when we got to the car park it was clear it was too windy. We waited for Wayne and the three of us went up to the top to sit it out. By 6.45pm it was lulling, so we got the gliders out, only for it to pick back up a lot at 7pm. We packed back up and headed down for a beer instead.
Monday, 5th October 2009
Posted by Judith on 05 Oct 2009 | Tagged as: Archery
On paper today should have been a fine day. ESE, lightish and increasingly sunny (that was my interpretation of the forecast anyway). Actually, it was overcast all day and nil wind. These are probably the worst conditions for Corndon, so at 2.30pm we wrote the day off and went to do archery. As soon as we left the sky cleared, but only for a short time and it soon clouded over again. Thursday is looking good though.
Thursday, 1st October 2009
Posted by Judith on 02 Oct 2009 | Tagged as: Archery, Flying
What a frustrating day…
The forecasters promised an XC day, but it was very cloudy when we got up, so we did some work and then headed out in the general direction of the Lawley. As we came up the Long Mynd, Steve Pymm was already there and said it was on enough to have a go. We watched him take off and climb, so went and got our gear, phoning Martin on the way to let him know about our change of plan. By the time we were ready Steve had gone over the back and conditions were going more north. I launched, got no ridge lift at all and promptly went down. Geoff came and got me and Martin reported having a horrible launch because the wind was so far off the hill. He did manage to get high though, but decided to wait for a better climb before he headed over the back.
I launched again (the wind didn’t seem that far off the hill), screamed southwards and on turning back north, basically stopped dead and arrived on the slope just under the gliding club. Geoff flew and found it horribly rough, so landed back on top and Martin limped back from the south end and didn’t make it into the field (on a DHV2/3!). We were clearly in the wrong place.
Where I had landed, the wind was 90 degrees off and I was on a SW facing bit of the ridge. There were some launchable cycles, but I thought to myself that if I saw someone else in that position I would say they were taking an unacceptable risk taking off just because they were too lazy to walk a few hundred meters. That clinched it and I bundled up the glider and walked down to the road. I hadn’t considered the unacceptable risk of not packing up the glider first and nearly broke first my ankle and then my neck stumbling over my harness not being able to see where I was going on the steep slope. What a numpty!
We all tore off to the Lawley after hearing that far from it being blown out, Dave Broughton was flying there. Of course by the time we got there and had carried up, it had picked up and we didn’t fly. We did archery in Stretton instead, so at least we got to do something fun in the end.