May 2008
Monthly Archive
Saturday, 10th May 2008
Michaela, Geoff and I were up early raring to go where ever it looked good. The forecast was for hot and sunny weather with very light winds, but looking out of the window the sky was cloudy and it was spitting. Thanks BBC! We phoned just about everyone we could think of to try to decide the best place to go to and eventually settled on Bache.
It was still spitting when we got there, but eventually it brightened up. We got the gliders ready and Steve from Kington turned up. It was off to the south for a time, so we decided to throw the gliders in the car and go up to the higher take-off. Having watched Steve float about below launch for ages we gave it a go and found it worked better round the corner. I caught a thermal, but couldn’t turn in it because I was too close to the ridge and I sunk out in the sink behind the thermal. I slope landed and missed a barbed-wire fence by inches.
By this time the wind seemed more east again, so Michaela and I walked to the lower take off and Geoff flew there to meet us. Then it was just a waiting game… As soon as some birds came we launched, but they were few and far between. At 4pm James and Tammy turned up with a load of friends for tandem flights. I spotted a bird, flew out to it and got the thermal. James and Geoff followed me, but only hit the tail end of it. The thermal was weak and the drift was strong, so I settled on flying back up to the higher launch to retrieve the car. Got 600′ ATO. By 5pm the day was over, so we went for beer instead.
Friday, 9th May 2008
Judith 10 May 2008 | : Archery, Flying
The weather was grey and murky in the morning so we worked. It seemed to brighten up a little in the afternoon but it was so light we decided to go and do some archery, rather than going flying. It was a mistake. The sun started to come out whilst we were shooting and it was clear that it could potentially be a good day.
We raced back to Corndon but it was 6pm by the time we launched and very light. Geoff launched first and was able to maintain. I launched second and managed to scratch my way up to 100 feet ATO and then bumbled into a thermal which took me to the dizzy height of 248′ ATO. A second flight took me straight to half way up the hill. By the time I got the bracken out of my lines it didn’t seem worth lugging the glider back up the hill, so I folded it up and walked back up. 15 minutes of airtime. Wayno also went down, but was determined not to be defeated by the hill, so walked back up and did a heroic dash to the road, only to miss the power lines by 3 feet.
Michaela reported some wind on the east face, but by this time it was so late and very light so she didn’t bother and we went to Bishop’s Castle for a few pints instead.
Thursday, 8th May 2008
Judith 08 May 2008 | : Archery, Miscellaneous activities
Beautiful sunny weather today, shame it was howling…
We went to do some archery and collected my funky new green Salomon jacket which I got from my Ozone Open team sponsors, Beyond Extreme.
On the way home we stopped at the Mynd to take some photos for an article I have written for Skywings. Geoff was the reluctant model. He’s a natural. He even went into a supermodel sulk when he got cold whilst I was changing the camera batteries.
Geoff has also finished the XC page (see link on right). Cross countries viewable in Google Maps (2D, lots of stats, no need to have Google Earth on your computer) or Google Earth (3D, nice graphical view of altitude, fewer stats, need Google Earth installed). Not yet put up our XCs of the last few days, since he managed to mess up the tracklogs. But some sample flights there.
Wednesday, 7th May 2008
We went to fly at Corndon. It was very light, but forecast to pick up. As we were opening up the gliders small bits of cumulus were just beginning to form. I had to change the speed bar on my glider and by the time we finished messing around, the wind started blowing. I got off fast while I had the chance and thermalled straight up, no beats at all, so left the hill more or less immediately. The drift was strong and I was over the NW edge of the ridge quite low, but the lift was good and I was under a building cloud, so I stuck with it, leaving the hill with only 900 feet ATO.
Because the wind was SE, the drift was straight towards airspace at Welshpool. I tried to fly north of it, but got scuppered trying to fly cross-wind. I landed at Forden, only 10k. I would have got a lot further, even with just a glide, but for having to avoid airspace.
After I launched the wind picked up and Geoff elected not to fly and chased me. A super-fast retrieve got us back up the hill for another go. On the drive up we saw Graeme and Dave B. going XC. The clouds were developing properly by this time. We found out later that Graeme got to Llanymynech and Dave B. and Kai landed somewhere north of Welshpool. James D. landed on Long Mountain. Congratulations to Graeme, who won the day.
By the time we got back to the hill after Geoff retrieved me, the wind had picked up a lot and it wasn’t safely flyable for PGs anymore. It probably was OK for HGs when we arrived, but the wind was picking up, the clouds were getting bigger, and the wind was right on the small SE corner. And there is currently no official bottom landing from the SE face. So Geoff decided not to fly, which, given how the wind and clouds developed, was a good decision.
We ended the day with nearly everyone meeting at our house (complicated car retrieve stuff going on) for beer and tapas.
Tuesday, 6th May 2008
We went to Bache. The forecast was for strengthening winds and this turned out to be true. I began to wonder about the conditions on the drive there, but Mark L. was flying his acro wing when we arrived. He landed and reported very rough conditions. The HG league were also at Bache, as was the BBC film crew with helicopter. The HG task was to Bala lake, some 80km away.
Geoff rigged his HG and despite Paul, Mark and Graeme flying their PGs, I decided the wind was too strong to make it fun. Graeme and Paul landed at the bottom, but Mark braved a top landing, which made interesting viewing. Jocky, with Andrew Marr from the BBC on tandem, seemed to be getting blown back, but managed to push forward slowly and I assume they landed somewhere to the east of Bache.
Geoff managed to leave the hill pretty fast, found a second thermal, but decided to go on a cross-wind glide to a cloud, lost too much height and was downed about 15km from the hill.
It’s a shame Geoff didn’t get to Bala. I would probably have got to him quicker than I did. As it was, he was in the middle of nowhere and I had no mobile signal and the GPS kept losing the satellites. The exhaust fell off and I spent ages under the car trying to re-attach it with a glider tie (a cattle grid did for it in the end). Who said retrieves were part of the XC adventure?
Monday, 5th May 2008
The forecast was for a warm front which was supposed to go through at lunchtime. When we woke up, it was clear that the front had arrived early. We went to Corndon where the HG league were already assembled. We were hopeful that the front would clear and it would become good in the afternoon.
Once we got there it was overcast and light winds. It stayed like that all day. We spent the day chatting to old friends and it was particularly nice to see Len Hull.
Milling around was a BBC film crew making a programme called ‘Above Britain’ with Jocky Sanderson. The subject of the episode was thermals. Sadly, there were not many thermals for them to film.
Pilots started to lob off the hill at 4pm but no one got high enough to get away. The launch window closed at 5pm and it got nicely flyable at 5.45pm. The last HG launched, stating that “I might as well fly down”, but he went up and Geoff and Wayne launched shortly after to have a really nice evening flight. They got up to 700-odd feet ATO and made the most of the nice sunny evening.
See video of Bob Little launching his HG.
Weekend, 3rd – 4th May 2008
Judith 04 May 2008 | : Boring stuff
Grey, windy, rainy. Summer, please start soon!