Me taking off from Corndon. Thanks to Wayne for the photo.Another light wind forecast, with an easterly component. It seemed that it might be cloudier at the Malverns for longer, so we decided to stay local and chose Corndon. I was getting frustrated at arriving too late the last day or two, so we went early. On the way there we saw the first cumulus popping up and we were first on site. I decided to fly the Aspen II instead of the Zoom, as the sheep crap seems to have dried a bit over the last few days. As we were getting set up, Luke and Wayne arrived, followed by Kai. As we were getting ready a few birds were about, but it seemed like the day could improve. I need to work on my ground handling with the Aspen as it launches a lot faster than the Zoom (or, in fact, the Golden), so I started idly pulling the glider up. Kai shouted to me to show everyone where the lift was and I turned around, saw a buzzard thermalling up, launched and got straight to cloudbase. Very cool.

Geoff launched straight after me but didn’t get in the same core. He flew off to the east side and caught a good thermal and we caught up with each other on the other side of Corndon. We could see Wayne and Kai frantically trying to get in the air after us.

Geoff and I managed to stay together all the way to Long Mountain. The climbs were painfully slow and the best I got was 1.6m/s. We never got above 3000AMSL, but every wisp was working, so it was easy to drift along. At Long Mountain it was clear we would drift into Welshpool airspace, so we needed to crosswind to the north to stay out of it. Cloudbase wasn’t high enough to fly over it. Geoff went on a glide to a cloud which didn’t work and I followed him, hoping to pick up a thermal on Long Mountain. There was an obvious trigger, the gully leading up to the aerial, but it is completely covered in trees and with the height we had it would have been a huge gamble to fly into it hoping for lift. Once in it there was nowhere to land. Both of us chose the safe option and flew along side it, but we didn’t get any lift. We landed in the same field, for the first time ever (on an XC). It’s nice to fly together, and to land together is pretty special. We were right about the gully being a good trigger, after we landed successive groups of birds thermalled out from there.

Wayne kindly retrieved us and on getting back we saw Kai coming back from some massive triangle (as usual). A cold beer later, we’re still smiling. Oh, and I LOVE the Aspen!

Geoff’s comments: it was a short XC, but quite tricky. An inversion was capping the thermals at around 3000 or so ASL; the thermals were quite broken, hard to find a solid core. And because we were unable to break through the inversion, we couldn’t get enough height to go over the airspace, hence the decision to try and go round (rather than straight through it, which was, inevitably, where the good clouds were). A shame the cloud we went to didn’t work, because I think there was a lot of distance to be had in the day. We made a good decision after the failed cloud to go to Long Mountain, full of classic triggers (which worked after we landed). Going there, though, meant that we were heading into rising ground, whilst we were in sinking air, not a good combination, but in the circumstances a risk worth taking. Had we been, say, 500 feet higher when we got to Long Mountain, I think we would have gone over the gully and got up again (or found a thermal on some other trigger there).

We could have tried for a triangle or out and return, but on my 1/2 that’s not really a good bet, so, for once, I’m quite happy with the decision we made, even if it did put us down on the ground. That’s what happens when you have to avoid airspace.

All in all, a good flight, made even better by us launching, flying and landing together.

See photos of today.

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