June 2010
Monthly Archive
Saturday, 5th June 2010 (UK)
Geoff 05 Jun 2010 | : Trying, but failing, to fly
Geoff writes: a really disappointing day. I thought the forecast was quite good, reasonable westerly breeze from lunchtime, nice and sunny. In the event, it was extremely light, and mostly south to south west. There were some thermals, as indicated by the accuracy guys flying through them, but very weak and small. Even Kai, who before launching said he never bottom landed the Mynd, did this time. I only saw one bird all day. There was very little sun, and the sky gradually clouded over more or less completely, before the wind turned east and it started to rain.
Bit of a waste of a day, though the accuracy competition did OK, managing plenty of tasks.
And I’m contantly surprised by the huge number of people totally unable to read in the UK. We have a big fuck-off sign at the entrance to our club field at the Mynd, saying it’s an airfield, no unauthorised people allowed in, no dogs, etc. For the usual insurance and safety reasons, and it’s not like the Long Mynd is short of land for people to sit or walk on. But there was a constant stream of people today just ignoring it, and blithely walking on to the field, including at least one group of about 15 people off a minibus. Amazing.
Friday, 4th June 2010 (Slovenia)
Geoff 04 Jun 2010 | : Holiday, Walking
Judith writes: We woke up late after a late night. Despite lots of wave, the sun was shining and we decided to have a look at the Stol take-off, which is where the comp is supposed to be based mainly. The drive up was spectacular. The photos don’t do the place justice. The rock faces are near vertical, the ridges straight and the tops of the proper mountains are still covered in snow. The wind was over the back at take-off, but in the distance we could see lots of pilots doing long, long top-to-bottoms from a ridge facing us. Brendan and I decided to walk back down to Kobarid, while David drove down. We had anticipated it to be a walk of about one and a half hours.
The walk took us along the spine of the ridge, past lots of great thermal triggers and circling groups of vultures. Once we started the descent, it took a lot longer than anticipated. My crappy knees were making me take it really easy and we took nearly three and a half hours in the end. With the high humidity, we were sweating buckets and there were no streams or springs on the way, so I arrived back pretty hot and dehydrated; and certainly in need of a siesta.
People had been flying all afternoon, getting good heights, so Brendan drove David up to the launch at Kobala, near Tolmin. He had a nice flight, getting part way back to Kobarid and back to the landing near Tolmin. Forecast is looking good for tomorrow and the next few days.
Friday, 4th June 2010 (UK)
Geoff 04 Jun 2010 | : Archery, Trying, but failing, to fly
Geoff writes: having made a big mistake yesterday not going to the Malverns, because it was forecast windy and going SE, I thought today – on the same forecast – I would go – which was also a big mistake, because this time it did go SE. As I arrived at the Malverns, someone was walking down saying it was too far south, and no-one else was there anyway. Following a detour via Castlemorton – no-one there either! – I went back to Corndon, under an improving sky, which boded very well for XCs off the SE face there. I arrived to see Graeme landing, and Dave Broughton was also there, about to launch.
Graeme did say, as I was walking over, that some rain showers were forecast, but I said no chance! A few minutes after arriving at launch, the epic sky over-developed, and there were some really big, black, clouds, threatening rain, or at least very nasty lift. After chatting a while under a worsening sky, I gave up, and went to archery – where it did, in fact, rain for a while.
Oh well, that’s two days in a row messed up through bad decisions. Really, I should have gone to Bache (SSE), early. Hopefully, I will get it right tomorrow at the Mynd – and that is likely to be the last chance for a while as rain is coming in.
Thursday, 3rd June 2010
Geoff 03 Jun 2010 | : Miscellaneous activities
Geoff writes: I took Judith and the others to Birmingham airport this morning, to fly out to Slovenia for the comp. I was going to go on to the Malverns, but though it was a good sky, I thought it was probably too windy, so came home to do some work. A big mistake – looking at the League now, the longest flight from there so far is just over 70km, with some other smaller ones – so it obviously wasn’t blown out. Stupid really, I should just have gone.
Judith writes: Bumped into every pilot under the sun at the airport. I assumed that paying £40 each way for sports luggage meant that we could carry unlimited weight, but Cris and I learnt differently from the others. A major repack of my gear meant that half the pilots present were transporting some of my stuff. Cris ended up having to wear his sandals round his waist. A bit of fancy knee work propping up my glider on the check in belt had it down to 17.4kg. I shouldn’t have bothered re-packing!
We arrived in Trieste without incident and then travelled into the mountains and Slovenia. It’s a breathtakingly beautiful little country with mountains and picture postcard villages. Our accommodations is lovely too. We are on the top floor of one of the houses just on the outskirts of the town, with only a two minute walk to the bars and restaurants, but with the forest starting just up the road. I have my own little apartment, with the lads and kitchen adjacent. Lovely venison and crayfish dinner tonight.
Wednesday, 2nd June 2010
I’m off to Slovenia tomorrow for the British Nationals, so we were a little reticent about going too far afield. Malverns would have been our first choice, but we decided to stay local. We went out to Corndon at 2pm, when the sky got better. There was still no wind when we got there, but Kai had showed up and he’s always good for lobbing off and marking thermals.
We all got ready and Kai took off, but struggled initially until he got a climb on the SE face. I spotted a gaggle of swifts/swallows on the NE corner about two minutes after he launched and I managed to climb up to over 1000 feet ATO. As I was circling I could see a lamb with a hind leg caught between two rocks. It was jumping and tugging, clearly in distress. I radioed down to Geoff, but he didn’t get the message. Once I was high, I flew over to Kai’s thermal, but didn’t get in it, so flew back to launch and top landed to go and try to rescue the lamb.
When I got to it, its foot was wedged in the rocks and in trying to kick itself free he had cut and bloodied its other foot. Once I grabbed it and stopped it from struggling, I managed to free it and set it down. He hopped away, but there was no movement in the damaged leg.
I got back to launch, but a cloud had come over the hill and grew, shading us for an hour. No more birds, so we sat there watching Kai go round his usual mega triangle. We got a quick couple of hops, but nothing spectacular…
Tuesday, 1st June 2010
We couldn’t have picked a better day for our annual face-to-face JISC conference meeting. It rained all day! We did have to get up at the crack of dawn and drive to the centre of Birmingham, but the meeting was at one of those posh conference venues and the all-you-can-eat muffin buffet made up for it all in Geoff’s book. It was a very intense, and extremely productive, day, but I was exhausted by the end of it.
Whilst it would have been nice to go home and relax, we had to head off to Telford for the LMSC committee meeting. Another useful few hours and all is well with the club. Back home at midnight and we fell into bed absolutely knackered.
Monday, 31st May 2010
Geoff 01 Jun 2010 | : Miscellaneous activities
Geoff writes: we were expecting a nice, reasonably sunny day today, and were planning to go to Pandy to try a triangle or out and return. But the forecast changed, and it ended up cloudy all day, so we didn’t bother going out, just did some jobs around the house. In the event, this might have been a mistake, since people did fly at Pandy (and Corndon, where it was good, and other places) and got to some good heights, in spite of the cloud cover. Oh well….
And music night at the Bridges in the evening – busier than usual, being a Bank Holiday.