May 2009
Monthly Archive
Sunday, 10th May 2009
Finally, some flying! The forecast seemed to me that you had to go north (to Scotland) or south, but the midlands were a claggy no-go. We chose the Malverns and it was a good call. As Wayne, Michaela, Geoff and I were driving down, the sky was getting better and better. People were already high and Frank reported good conditions, but it was starting to cycle and people were getting high whilst others were bottom landing.
We got ready and waited for a good time to launch. Geoff got off first, but launched into the tail end of the thermal and had to slope land, but I spotted three pilots thermalling up from the town and headed over to them. The thermal took me to base at 3600′. I went on glide to the next cloud, but hit some lift on the way. As I turned round to circle I found my turn blocked by Jocky and two army blokes. We did all fan out and searched for lift, but we got low, scrabbled around in a weak thermal and then spotted two guys behind us screaming up. I dashed back upwind to them. Geoff joined the same thermal and we all climbed up together back to base.
The rest of the flight was similar – glide, find weak lift, see someone else in a boomer, dash over, get high. At Hereford we had to make a decision to fly north of Credenhill airspace, or fly through the gap between Credenhill and the SAS base. We chose the gap. We got high and into a good position to fly downwind through the gap. There were little cumulus forming midway, and it was all looking rather marvellous, when we hit lots of sink and Geoff went down. I found a thermal over a farm, but it was very broken. A seagull nearby was circling in better lift, and I flew over, but couldn’t work it properly. I landed a couple of kilometers from Geoff in Kingstone (36km).
Superfast retrieve from Michaela, we went to pick up Wayne in Hay-on-Wye. He did his usual trick of flying over us from the Malverns. He did exactly the same a year ago – turns out the boy can fly after all!
Saturday, 9th May 2009
Judith 11 May 2009 | : Miscellaneous activities
We’ve had a week of dealing with an unpleasant issue in the LMSC, so we decided to have the day off and go out and about. We chose Shrewsbury, which we’ve never really explored before. It’s really nice.
The Shrewsbury regatta was on, so we spent some time looking at the boats and races, until the cold wind made us look for shelter in a tea room. We also looked at the town museum.
In the evening, I went the Bishop’s Castle fair with Michaela, Wayne, Jackie and Andrew. I chickened out of the big ride (I did it last year), but Wayne and Andrew did it under duress. Andrew’s face was five minutes of astonishment (‘How did I end up here?) and Wayne looked like his balls were in a vice on the way up and as if he was going to loose his lunch on the way down. Hysterical.
Friday, 8th May 2009
Judith 08 May 2009 | : Boring stuff
Even windier today. We sat in the summer room for a while, but it sounded like the roof was going to be blown off, and this wasn’t conducive to reading or relaxing.
Too windy to do archery, so we worked. Sigh.
Thursday, 7th May 2009
Judith 08 May 2009 | : Archery, Party, party, party...
Wind, lots of it. It was a glorious hot day, with an epic sky, but way, way too much breeze. We worked, did archery, where I pulled a muscle in my shoulder because I didn’t warm up properly, and then we went out to Bishop’s Castle to see Mike Hoppet’s band. They were excellent. As it was open mic night, Mark L. played as well. Nice bit of drumming!
Wednesday, 6th May 2009
Judith 07 May 2009 | : Miscellaneous activities
Guess what? It was windy today!
Great working weather, so I edited the podcast I recorded with Tom Payne yesterday and it is available on the podcast page now. It’s on alpine flying and another really interesting one.
We also had the first meeting of the new Long Mynd Soaring Club committee, which Geoff now chairs. Thanks to all who came along, including Dave T who attended virtually, by webcam and skype, which is the way I usually attend committee meetings when we are in Spain. It’s going to be interesting for Geoff when we are back in Spain, chairing a meeting of ten or so people, remotely. Anyway, it was a very productive meeting, with a lot achieved.
Tuesday, 5th May 2009
We’re in for a big blow this week and it’s very, very windy. Too windy to make archery enjoyable, so we had some meetings, did some work and recorded another podcast! This time with Tom Payne, on alpine flying. Should be available soon, what with the lamentable forecast this week.
Monday, 4th May 2009
Judith 04 May 2009 | : Boring stuff
Typically for a bank holiday, it’s foul weather. Rain, gales, cold, damp. Brrrrr.
We worked on the LMSC newsletter and other committee stuff and are going out to open mic night at Bridges tonight, so at least something to look forward to.