Judith's blog

We spent the day at Farmer Phil’s Festival. It was howling all day and it started raining from mid-afternoon. It was also freezing cold. By the evening I was wearing 5 layers, including two fleeces and my skiing jacket. In fact, I wore more clothes than I usually do skiing, and it’s August!

We finally managed to find the acoustic tent this afternoon and saw a couple of great singers, but the highlight of the day was the Bob Marley tribute band. Despite the pouring rain they got everyone bopping (or was that just everyone trying to keep warm?).

By late afternoon the place had turned into a mudbath and cars were being towed out by tractor. The field was getting more and more slippery and people were starting to do Glastonbury-style mud bathing.

I learned a valuable lesson tonight… don’t try doing a jig in wellies on uneven ground when you’ve had a few. I got away with it, but only just!

See photos of today.

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Geoff: Ever since I realised I had a chance of winning the League for the best pilot with a 1/2 glider (my Niviuk Hook) and so started putting my flights in the League, our flying and decision making has fallen apart. Today was no exception.

All week the forecast for Friday was that it would be the only good day of the week, and would be SSW. That is a lousy direction for here, but good in the Peaks, with Eyam Edge being an excellent XC site, and our intention was to go there. Come Friday morning, and we began to get different forecasts – first, it was actually west at the Long Mynd; and second, Ali, our helicopter flying friend from RAF Shawbury said that their met person was forecasting WSW all day – a great direction for the Long Mynd. So, we duly went up the Long Mynd, which was bang on. (We had another reason too for staying here; we had tickets for a music festival close by, which Judith will write about below). I launched reasonably early, just after James, and as soon as I was in the air it seemed very southerly. I got to about 500′ ATO, tracking along the ridge, almost parallel to it. The wind had abruptly switched to SSW. No-one else got off, those in the air landed, James got away to do about 8k! Phil Bibby launched (in the SSW) and headed into the valley, but got nothing. We took his car down, and decided to go to Clatter (SW) along with a few others who had been on the Long Mynd.

At Clatter, it was on and flyable. People launched, and began to get up. I blew one launch, and got the glider very tangled in the thorns that are there. The wind was picking up and I couldn’t untangle it there, so I carried back a little, out of wind. By the time I untangled it, it was too strong to launch.

Those in the air had a reasonable flight, but all landed as the wind picked up. Judith went over the back first – she thermalled over the back and then couldn’t get back to the front, so had to go with it – and landed, going backwards, for 8km. Wayne a little later did exactly the same, for 4 or 5km. Another pilot went XC, but along the ridge rather than over the back; not sure where he got to.

So from our point of view for XC it was a lousy day.

And in the Peaks, the best flight was by Jean-Luc, 128k to Bridlington, with others flying shorter distances. Andy Wallace did just over 80km.

SSW/SW is a poor direction here. Clatter is a potentially good XC site, but it does get blown out easily, and that was the problem today. In general, in such conditions, it is far better to go to the Peaks, even if it is a 200 mile round trip for us; the other advantage of the Peaks is that if the wind does change slightly, switching sites is very easy since they are all so close together. And though usually the Peaks is windier than round here (though not this year) that really doesn’t apply to sites in Wales, like Clatter and Elan Valley, which do get blown out quickly.

So next time, we drive! And two lessons from today:

a) At Clatter, it was a very short window, and the lesson is to get in the air as soon as it is flyable, don’t take too long to set up!

b) Even the RAF met officer gets it wrong!

Judith’s comments: Another mistake we made was not to pay attention enough to the occluded front which came through. All week I predicted that today would be an early day, as the wind would pick up in the afternoon. We should never have gone to a site where the wind would change from, rather than change to. We should have gone to a SW site and waited till the wind was right, not go to a site where there would only be a short window before it went off. Further north, they got the benefit of surfing the front of the front, whilst we had the high stuff from the word go. Next time…

In the evening we went to Farmer Phil’s festival (“Geddon moi land!”). Great bash. Michaela and I got new funky wellies especially for the occasion. We got there in time to see the end of Chumbawamba’s set, but they didn’t play Tubthumping, much to the consternation of the crowd. Wayne’s taken up celebrity stalking and got his picture taken with them. Next came Hazel O’Conner. She did a set only accompanied by a harp and she was fantastic. Wayne stalked her backstage for more snaps. He needs to get out more!

We had a great evening, listening to the bands, looking at the stalls and watching fire juggling. Roll on tomorrow for day two!

See photos of today.

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We actually managed to fly today. The forecast was for it to overdevelop quickly with lots of showers, so we decided to go to archery. As we passed the Mynd launch, it was way off to the south. However, by the time we got to archery, the sky seemed pretty good, it had moved more west (though not much) and we decided to skip the archery and go back to the Mynd.

We were a bit late really, at that point (though still early in the day) and the showers were starting to come through. I think there was one chance to go XC, very briefly, and we missed it. Later, some did fly in between the showers; but they got worse. We decided to go home for a break and wait for the rain to pass over.

Eventually, we went back to the Mynd and had a nice few hours flying in the evening, followed by a drink with friends in Wentnor. No XC, but a much better day than we had expected.

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More wind, more rain, more work.

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Wind, rain, work.

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We went for a walk today. It was going to be an early day for doing anything, with rain forecast for the afternoon. We hiked up Caer Caradoc, along and back. A really nice walk, although it was bracing in the wind on top and we did get wet walking back. We were going to do some archery, but the field was busy and it started to drizzle again. Graeme and Nigel flew at Hope, but it didn’t sound much fun in strengthening winds.

In the evening we went to the open mic night at the Horseshoe Inn at Bridges. Fantastic performers and well worth the trip.

See photos of today.

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Howling. We had a lazy day. I edited the newest podcast with Martin Knight on his first comp season. It’s posted up in the podcast section now.

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