The forecast today was making my head hurt. I just didn’t get it. There was really high pressure (1033Mb) slap bang over us and no wind. RASP was giving crap thermal strength, but the MGC was giving a 4/5 rating. Mick suggested the Gyrn, which seemed like a really good bet in terms of the hill (possible to have multiple attempts from there, rather than a one chance site like the Wrekin, or to some extent, the Malverns) and steep (unlike Bache). In the end I asked weather guru extraordinaire, David Thomson, for some assistance and I got a fantastic briefing. Like he says, you need to look at the bigger picture! And the bigger picture included where the air was coming from – the Caribbean, so a very saturated airmass. At 9.30am the Malverns weather station was giving 74% humidity. And, as he pointed out, if you could get up to the clouds, it would be great… the problem was getting there; so a big hill, away from sea breezes, was essential.

As we drove past Corndon a big monster of a cloud was sitting above it, but near Welshpool there was lots of high cloud. As we approached the Gyrn, there was blue sky and cumulus. We met Martin and Kai there and Mick was already doing tandem flights with friends. There didn’t seem to be much thermic activity, but there was a little wind. Kai, Martin and Geoff launched and went up for a while, but I bombed in the bottom landing. Geoff was flying over all our heads until he had to slope land when it switched off. Luckily I got a lift back up with Mick and Glyn and we went right up to the top launch.

It wasn’t very good for ages (Mick and I thermalled up and top landed, Kai got not much on the bottom ridge, people went down and got back up), but then the sky started to change, and the clouds started to grow properly. I thought Kai was down in the bottom landing and I decided to go for a punt. As I flew out I could see about 15 crows circling, so I shouted to Geoff to launch as I few over him. The crows dispersed as I flew to them, but the thermal came good. I climbed to 3800′ in a sometimes rough, sometimes fine, thermal, which the others all joined. Kai was skimming the landing field, but patiently worked weak lift until it got established and he zoomed to cloudbase. I left the lift way before then. Over the back were black monsters and rain, but pushing out worked well and a cloud street was developing in front of me. Mick decided to push forward first with the intention of doing an out-and-return, but then changed his mind and decided to fly home to Llanymynech. He hit a convergence line and cruised nearly all the way there. If only I had stuck with him!

The rest of us tried to do triangles and having never attempted one, it was a really good exercise for Geoff and me. We watched Kai and Martin blast off on their posh gliders, but we plodded along, just enjoying the views and trying our best to fly here, there and everywhere. I fell short, as did Kai, but Geoff and Martin got back, although Geoff’s isn’t big enough for a FAI triangle. Still, a really fun day and very enjoyable flying. I am sure they’ve done big flights at the Malverns, but it’s not guaranteed that we wouldn’t have gone down and at the end of the day, all of us had a nice flight at the Gyrn, and you can’t ask for much more really…

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