September 2009
Monthly Archive
Wednesday, 16th September 2009
Judith 17 Sep 2009 | : Boring stuff
After a nice lunch we headed home to pack up the van to drive to the Lakes. Hoping for some nice flying up north over the next couple of days.
Tuesday, 15th September 2009
Judith 17 Sep 2009 | : Archery
Geoff had been having horrendous toothache for a week and his misery was finally ended this morning, when the dentist whipped the offending molar out. He wasn’t feeling too great afterwards and we decided to go to Gloucestershire to visit his family. A quick bit of archery on the way had us arriving in time for one of Liz’s delicious dinners.
Monday, 14th September 2009
We had a work meeting this morning which took a little longer than anticipated and then it was a matter of catching up with the work we failed to do last week. It was flyable on Corndon and Mick, for example, flew for three hours, but it was a grey day and cold too, so we stayed in and did jobs, as we may head off north for the better weather for the rest of the week.
Sunday, 13th September 2009
Judith 14 Sep 2009 | : Flying, Walking
The BPC briefed at 8.30am and asked everyone to get a move on and go straight to Moel Berfedd as there was a forecast of increasing winds. We got there and saw the carry – it’s a stiff climb, especially with 4kg of extra ballast. On getting to the top, the wind was increasing, so we got ready. The task was to fly to the beach via Moel Hebog, which required climbing off the pump and then up the side of the Snowdon horseshoe. I launched early (as soon as people were maintaining), but it got busy and scratchy and it isn’t a big face. I looked around the corner, but people at the pump were faring even worse than us, so I slope landed and took off again when conditions allowed more people to be in the air. It was getting windier all the time, so it was tricky to take thermals back, but the lift out front was getting better so I started pushing out to get a climb. It was all going up and looking good when Calvo cancelled the task due to strong wind.
I wasn’t in the comp so could do what I liked, but given that I don’t know the area and that the comps guys had seen a forecast, I did the sensible thing and landed.
It was such a nice hot day, we decided to make the most of it, so took the tent down fast and headed for the slate quarry on the other side of the lake at Llanberis. It’s amazing. Massive in scale and with a lot of the equipment, quarry houses, etc. still there, it’s like a museum. We spent a happy afternoon there just marvelling and chilling out.
Well done to local lads Richard Chaffe for coming second in the BPC and Dave Thomas fourth. I don’t know the rest of the results, so well done to everyone else too!
Saturday, 12th September 2009
We woke to find Snowdonia basked in sunshine. A task was called at Harlech and we got a lift with Cris and the Pennine lads. At launch it was well off to the south. What they were hoping for was that the wind would start blowing from the mountains and mix with the sea breeze to cause a convergence, which would get us up and away to Cader Idris and then the beach at Barmouth. The met wind was so weak that it never happened. A better place would have been inland in the mountains on a south facing slope, but with 75-odd pilots you need a hill that can fit them all!
Everyone sat around chatting and snoozing in the sunshine. A few wind dummies went off but the farmer at the bottom complained and the bottom landing was closed for a while until an alternative could be found. Then the task was changed to fly a cat’s cradle between a hill to the north and Harlech Castle. At 4.30pm the day was cancelled and people started packing up. Dave J-H was adamant it was an evening site and it would work shortly, so we listened to his sagely advice and stayed. Sure enough, within 5 minutes of the majority of people packing up and leaving, the wind direction changed 120 degrees. Tony Spirling launched and maintained in the valley for a while before going down but Dave Thomson and Rich Chaffe, who launched next stayed up. We all got ready and in the air double-quick.
It was magical. We thermalled up a little and then went along the ridge. It was easy to maintain for a while and Rich had gone all the way along to the end of the cliffs beyond Harlech. I flew around until it got scratchy, but I didn’t want to miss out on the chance to fly over the castle and along the cliffs, so I set off before I was too low. Flying over the castle was spectacular and I could hear the cheers from the pilots sitting at the pub in town. I made it onto the cliffs easily and soared there with Cris, Chris Williams, Richard Butterworth, Rich, Dave J-h, Dave Thomas and lots of other friends. There was lots of silliness going on in between admiring the fantastic views. We landed on top and Dave J-H kindly took us back up for the van.
By the time we got back and had showered and eaten, the sun had caught up with me and I couldn’t keep my eyes open. Instead of partying, I was in bed by 10.30pm!
Friday, 11th September 2009
We woke up early in the morning to set off to Snowdonia, but on looking at the forecast again, there seemed to be a good chance of a third good day on Corndon. Since we messed up the last two, we decided to give it a go. We bumped into Kai on the hill and it was just the three of us for most of the day. Despite it being blue in the morning, by the time we set off to go flying, high cloud was over us, shutting off the sun. At Leavesley Hill the conditions looked better with cumulus.
We all got ready and waited. Then we waited a little more. We chatted some, but mostly we waited. Kai had a punt, following a bird, and he managed to get a couple of hundred feet off the deck. I followed another bird, but it didn’t work out and I slope landed in amongst lots of bracken. I may not have mentioned this before, but I really, really hate bracken. In the end I got into such a mess trying to get my gilder out and back up to launch without collecting the remainder of the bracken on the hill that I devised a new carrying technique. Risers in my jacket and then the lines folded into the glider and the sail folded over and over and then I carried it up the hill in front of me like a washer woman bundle.
After some more waiting, it got soarable and we lobbed off. I slope landed again… guess where? Yep, in another carefully chosen clump of bracken. As I was freeing my lines, Geoff and Kai were having a nice time but I decided to stay calm and not let it phase me – never let your own incompetence spoil your enjoyment.
In the end we had some nice soaring, but it was impossible to get away. At 4pm we packed up, headed home, packed up the van and headed to Snowdonia. The news there was that Dave Thomson was the only person to make goal in the BPC task but because so many people didn’t launch he only got 66 points (out of a possible 1000), which seems ridiculous in the extreme.
Thursday, 10th September 2009
Geoff writes: another epic (I don’t use the word lightly) day at Corndon, which we again managed to mess up. We thought the wind would start off strongish, but drop during the day. So we arrived with Kai, Mark L., Mick, Alan, Gordon and others, late morning. A couple of others were already there, Steve Parsons and Dave Birch. Steve and Dave left as we were launching, doing around 130km. Kai, Judith and I were flying; Kai was slightly higher, and left with the next thermal. We were both drifting back far too fast, and came back to the front, on the assumption it would drop off a little, and be easier for us to climb out without being blown back too low. That was a mistake – Kai got to Tenby, 137km.
The Joint Services comp turned up, some of them got away in the increasing wind, though I think most didn’t get very far. Mark L. got away, to Cardigan Bay (90km I think he said). I flew a couple of times, but it was really top end for me, and, again, as soon as I got in a thermal I was drifting rapidly over the back. In the end, after sitting around on launch for a while waiting for it to drop off, which it didn’t, I launched in a lull, got in a thermal, and this time did get blown back very low. Fortunately, I managed to climb out.
It was odd after that. Drifting back from launch was rough – the wind was strong, I was low. I had a few collapses, but these stopped as I got back above ridge height (I was really low over the back, not to be recommended in those winds. Silly really.). The further back I got, the less the drift was, which isn’t that unusual. I got to cloudbase, around 4300, in my second thermal with almost no drift at all. But then, flying to the next cloud (they were few and far between at this point in the day) as I got lower I realised I was getting slower and slower, and heading more into wind – the direction was slightly different lower down. And the lower I got, the stronger the drift was. In the end, I was relatively low, in the boonies – deep valleys and high ridges – and I was very reluctant to drift with the weak thermals I had in case they took me somewhere with no landing places. Eventually, I gave up, left the weak lift, and landed on top of a ridge, coming down more or less vertically. Glad I did – shortly after I landed the wind picked up even more, and I would have been going backwards. The problems of flying a 1/2 glider. It was about 25km in total, not a lot at all, but very interesting flying!
So, today’s mistake: don’t second guess the weather, if you get a chance, go. If I’d gone with Kai, he’d have lost me after the first thermal, but I would almost certainly have got a lot further than I did, not least because the sky was better then.
We should probably change the XC tips page, to XC mistakes, since I seem to have made more this year than in all my other years of flying put together.