Thursday, 1st October 2009
Posted by Judith on 02 Oct 2009 at 12:51 pm | Tagged as: Archery, Flying
What a frustrating day…
The forecasters promised an XC day, but it was very cloudy when we got up, so we did some work and then headed out in the general direction of the Lawley. As we came up the Long Mynd, Steve Pymm was already there and said it was on enough to have a go. We watched him take off and climb, so went and got our gear, phoning Martin on the way to let him know about our change of plan. By the time we were ready Steve had gone over the back and conditions were going more north. I launched, got no ridge lift at all and promptly went down. Geoff came and got me and Martin reported having a horrible launch because the wind was so far off the hill. He did manage to get high though, but decided to wait for a better climb before he headed over the back.
I launched again (the wind didn’t seem that far off the hill), screamed southwards and on turning back north, basically stopped dead and arrived on the slope just under the gliding club. Geoff flew and found it horribly rough, so landed back on top and Martin limped back from the south end and didn’t make it into the field (on a DHV2/3!). We were clearly in the wrong place.
Where I had landed, the wind was 90 degrees off and I was on a SW facing bit of the ridge. There were some launchable cycles, but I thought to myself that if I saw someone else in that position I would say they were taking an unacceptable risk taking off just because they were too lazy to walk a few hundred meters. That clinched it and I bundled up the glider and walked down to the road. I hadn’t considered the unacceptable risk of not packing up the glider first and nearly broke first my ankle and then my neck stumbling over my harness not being able to see where I was going on the steep slope. What a numpty!
We all tore off to the Lawley after hearing that far from it being blown out, Dave Broughton was flying there. Of course by the time we got there and had carried up, it had picked up and we didn’t fly. We did archery in Stretton instead, so at least we got to do something fun in the end.
3 Responses to “Thursday, 1st October 2009”
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Got to the Mynd really late on with Jez Gotch (who you were talking with last weekend I believe), however Wendy was telling fibs – saying it was WNW, and in fact it felt reasonably straight on at launch. On the promise of working with him to get him an XC under his belt, he launched and immediately shot off south, I thought it was a dodgy move as it was well off once in the air. There was still some weak thermals about, so I shot off past the bowls to get close to him. We then both struggled for ages as the wind went more and more north, Jez finally valiantly slope landing a long way down by the bowls. I meanwhile was determined not to go down as my knee was still painfull, and a walk up would have been a major issue and I had the car keys!. Try as I might I could not get in to slope land despite the wind so well off. I saw three Kites and two hawks climbing nearby and that gave me the hoist up above the hill top to top land nicely just south of the big forest. The wind on top was totally in line with the footpath (N – NNE). I was glad that no air ambulance was required – I have never ever successfully flown a hill with the wind so ridiculously off the hill as that flight, and one I don’t want to repeat in a hurry.
It was crap this morning too – far too windy, despite my ventimeter showing 6-10mph on the ground. Half speedbar just to maintain at 300ft ATO and full bar to go forward. It was off to the south this time. When I landed a few minutes later it was howling on the ground and obviously too windy.
Yes, it’s Autumn…. not that good Saturday either. But maybe Sunday at the coast?