Geoff writes: managed to get a lot of flying today at the Long Mynd, though it was not quite the day we expected. Most of the day it was very cloudy, almost no sun, and very cold! People were flying from early on; we went out about lunchtime, having done some work first, and the wind promptly dropped to almost nothing, and no sun meant no thermals to speak of. Judith did launch after we’d been there a while, when I saw some birds thermalling, and managed to get 7 or 800′ ATO. No-one followed her off though, until it had gone through.

Then an hour or so later, it started to get better. The wind picked up a little, there was enough to ridge soar whilst connecting with the weak thermals, and it became easy to stay up. As it got better, people spread out away from launch, which was helpful in avoiding too many gliders turning in too small a space in too many directions.

Later, it started to wave, not incredibly strongly, but enough to give plenty of lift, making it easy to stay around 800′ ATO, and push out a little. There possibly had been some weak wave much of the day, just kind of hidden by all the cloud. Over the rest of the day, the wind picked up, and I had trouble top landing, going slightly backwards until I managed to push out in front again, then top landed successfully a few minutes later. Eventually, it became too strong for PGs, and the skies were left to the hang gliders.

Judith also had great fun doing a tandem with Nigel Lasseter.

So, not the XC day we hoped for, but fun soaring, and, at least earlier on, a good day to practise light wind flying and soaring.

See photos of today.

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