September 2010
Monthly Archive
Tuesday, 21st September 2010
Judith writes: We had been checking the forecast for a few days and decided it would be much better in the Peaks. A chat with Andy confirmed this, so we got up early and drove up to Derbyshire. We were obviously on to something, as Kai and Dave T. aslo headed north to Bunster and David T. headed down to Parlick from Scotland. The sky was pretty poor most of the way and Helen didn’t think it look very promising, but as we got closer to Eyam, it cleared and cumulus started to organise itself into nice streets. We wondered about the wind strength, but Paul, a local pilot, launched first and seemed to be having no problems with penetration.
I launched second and vowed to go over the back as soon as I could, since the weather was due to deteriorate and because Eyam isn’t a ridge to hang around on. It has something of a reputation amongst paraglider pilots. I had never flown it on a PG before, but have a lot of experience of it on a hang glider, and never had any issues at all with it then. I flew along to the pub and bimbled about a bit before spotting a bird thermalling out front. I connected with the climb and was off. Geoff, Helen, John S. and Denis W. rushed off to follow me, but didn’t get into the same climb, so I went on my own. I lost the thermal as soon as I was in a position of not being able to get back, but hunted around successfully and got it again. The climb was strengthened by some lift kicking off the lee side of the moors behind Bradwell.
The climbs didn’t seem to want to go to base, so I went on glide to Stanage but realised I wasn’t going to be able to make it onto the ridge, so flew to the little rocky escarpment in front of the parking. It worked well and my next climb took me past Stanage and over the moors. I had looked at the airmap planning to head NNE or NE, so had studied the Upton corridor and RHADS airspace, but stupidly, I hadn’t looked closely at the airspace further to the west. My plan had been to fly over Sheffield, or even to try to keep east of it and that would put me in the perfect line for getting past RHADS. Once over the back, the thermals were drifting me N or NNW and I was getting further and further away from Sheffield. With each glide I tried to get back east, but each thermal would drift me back off course. Once Stocksbridge appeared on the GPS, I knew I was in a bad place. I remembered something about Stocksbridge being a problem, but couldn’t remember what the issue was and I couldn’t get to my airmap to check. I spent most of the flight circling, so couldn’t get to the GPS to check it easily either, so in desperation I radioed John to ask him, but he was in a tricky place and couldn’t respond.
I made a final dash east, but it took me to a decaying cloud (that seems to be happening to me a lot these days!) and I went down. I wasn’t actually where I thought I was. I had zoomed out on the GPS, and thought I was near the 3500′ limit, whereas I had actually managed to push more east and landed at High Green, NW of Sheffield and only a few miles from where I went to college. However, having looked at the airmap, had I let myself drift with the thermals and gone downwind, this would have headed me straight for Leeds-Bradford airspace. It really helps to know an area!
Once on the ground, the front caught up with me pretty quickly and I learned later that John landed somewhere very near me and Helen made it to close to Barnsley, 5km further downwind. Geoff came for me and we picked Helen up on the way to the pub. Nice to see her and Simon and we spent the evening with Andy and Denise. So nice to catch up properly with old friends.
Monday, 20th September 2010
A windy, sunny day, so we worked and did gardening, until it seemed to start to drop off and a hang glider started flying. We got ready fast and headed up the Long Mynd. I had some test flying to do – both for a new harness and my old glider, which I’m giving away. When we arrived it was light and perfectly flyable, although there was some dark cloud upwind and much debating whether it was rain or not.
I got the Zoom out, checked it over, groundhandled it and then took off. It was silky smooth and I spent a lot of the time flying hands off, just steering with my body. It’s a nice glider. After a short while the lift got weaker, so I flew over the wind sock and noticed it was dropping, so I top landed while I had the chance. The wind dropped some more and the others didn’t get off because it was so light. Then we felt some spots of rain and we legged it back to the car. Geoff and I decided to call it a day, having at least flown one thing. However, when we got back home, the rain must have stopped up the hill (not at our house, it was still spitting there), because Nick Bubb had taken off and was doing some gentle soaring.
Music night with Michaela later…
Sunday, 19th September 2010
Judith 19 Sep 2010 | : Party, party, party..., Work
After going to the Michaelmas Fair in Bishops Castle last night, we decided to do some work today, but we needed some shopping and headed back to BC this afternoon. Needless to say, we stayed rather longer than expected. First we watched the end of a show of a company of jugglers. Then we could hear drumming up the hill and went to watch Siyaya, a band from Zimbabwe. They were amazing. Great music and incredibly energetic dancing. I was most impressed by the fact that they could do incredible footwork whilst keeping their upper bodies completely still.
As we walked down the hill there was Morris dancing. We’re usually quite scathing about this, but they really put their heart and soul into it. Next we saw Savage Skills, a freestyle bike stunt team. They did leaps and jumps; bouncing around their colleague; crushing cans from a great height; high jumps and finally pin-point precision jumps with only one wheel.
All the museums were open today and we went into the house on stilts and Geoff was right, well worth a visit. Eventually, we did go back home to do more work and had I known what news I was going to get on my return, I would have bought a bottle of bubbly at the supermarket. The keynote speaker I was hoping for has confirmed. Harlan Lane is going to be taking part in the SDP conference. When I first started working with deaf people in 1992, his book ‘When the Mind Hears’ was the first one I bought about deafness and deaf history, and it is still a seminal work on the topic. He is still at the forefront of his field and I’m very excited about his presentation and his discussion at the conference.
Saturday, 18th September 2010
Judith writes: Finally a flyable day! The lead-up to today was interesting, since the forecast changed nearly hourly and they had a huge degree of uncertainty as to what would actually happen. What seemed clear yesterday was that it would be better further south, as the front would be coming down from the north. I also surmised that the flyable window would be short and that there was a chance that it would become blown out by lunchtime. Given all this, we decided to head for Frocester, to give ourselves more time in the day, and RASP was giving it better thermal strength there too. A quick last minute check with Wayne Seeley had our decision confirmed, but luckily he told us about the Battle of Britain airshow at Kemble, just downwind from Frocester. I don’t like mixing it with airspace and have enough trouble concentrating on the flying without the added workload of negotiating an aerial battle reenactment. Anyway, I don’t think they had paragliders taking part in the Battle of Britain, so for authenticity sake, I thought it was only fair we didn’t go.
We considered the Malverns, but opted for the good old Long Mynd (and a lie in!) instead. We got there relatively early (10.30am) and set up fast. People were leaving as we were getting ready, so time to get a move on. I launched and vowed to get away as soon as I could, as I could already see the front getting closer. The plan worked well and I left pretty much straight away, on my own. I connected with a climb over Ragleth and then carried on over Wenlock Edge. I could see a group of others struggling over Brown Clee and made a mental note to have that as a difficult area for the day and to make sure I was at base/heading for a good cloud when I got there.
Getting from Wenlock Edge to Brown Clee was a hard slog and I probably should have abandoned my slow climb for a faster one, as it would have bought me more time ahead of the front. However, I didn’t push and then got low behind Brown Clee, which was partly caused by some erratic bimbling while I got my inner gloves out and on – my hands were freezing. I was nearly down, when I spotted two tractors turning a field. I figured that it had to work. Frost in the morning, strong sun and green fields all around the ones they were working in… no brainer, surely?
I got the tell-tale roughness over the field, so bits were being released, I just needed to sit it out until the whole thermal released. I hung on, telling myself ‘never say die’ and all that, and then it popped and I got the strongest climb of the flight all the way up to base at 4000′. I then had to make a decision… follow the cloud street towards Birmingham airspace, or try to edge more south and make a long distance more feasible. Since my shortest flight was 41km, I decided to go for it and headed out to a cloud away from the street, which turned out to be decaying. I flew over the place I landed near Kidderminster last week and extended my flight a little, to land on the edge of Wolverley.
It was a scoring flight at 46km, but in hindsight, I should have stuck with the street, given that the front was catching up with me. At this stage in the game, you need to take some risks and try to fly tactically, so what that it didn’t work out!
Geoff didn’t have a good day. He had a tangle in his lines and spent ages sorting it out, only to get bracken in his lines about six times, so he was off late and then got caught in the strong winds. He didn’t get away and eventually elected to land in the bottom with a number of other pilots. What a difference half an hour makes! With the front close, he chose to come and get me, and we picked up Krzysztof and Karol on the way, as they had landed not far from me. It was raining when we got back to the Long Mynd at 3.30pm. So the day was short indeed.
Friday, 17th September 2010
Geoff 18 Sep 2010 | : Trying, but failing, to fly, Work
With a synoptic like this, you’d think it would be flyable, but no… it was too windy again! We had meetings in the morning and were already getting calls asking if it was flyable on the Long Mynd, but it was clear from early on that it wasn’t. By lunchtime the sky was looking very good indeed, so Geoff packed the hang glider and we were about to head up the hill when Martin phoned to say that it was flyable for paragliders. We raced up, but when we got there it had started gusting again and we wrote it off. The rather large area (many square miles) of rain in the distance, as well as the cold, was putting Geoff off getting the hangie out, so we all went for cream tea in Stretton instead. You can’t beat the easy option!
We tried again on the way home, but it had picked up even more and Geoff doesn’t like gale hanging on the HG either, so we canned it and went home to have a bonfire instead.
Thursday, 16th September 2010
Judith 16 Sep 2010 | : Archery, Trying, but failing, to fly, Work
More work, more bad weather. By the afternoon the weather had improved and hang gliders started to fly on the Long Mynd. We decided to head up there, taking all the toys with us so we had some flexibility. Once on the hill, we could see big showers around, so we didn’t even stop, but headed on down to the archery field in Stretton. As soon as we arrived the heavens opened and we had to shelter in the club house.
The archery session was good, but Geoff’s hang glider has to stay out for the night to dry off.
Wednesday, 15th September 2010
Howling gale today. Rain and generally rubbish weather. So we did more work and more prep for leaving, which involved one of our least favourite activities: shopping. We managed to go round half a dozen shops in Shrewsbury and then go to a shopping centre as well. We were very brave!
And I realised that we actually lead a fairly mundane life in comparison to some of our friends. Here’s what Johnny got up to this summer.