Wednesday, 11th August 2010
Posted by Judith on 11 Aug 2010 at 06:59 pm | Tagged as: Archery, Flying
This was the best forecast for ages. RASP was giving it really, really good in this area and people were coming from far and wide to fly at the Long Mynd. It was due to pick up, so we got to the hill at 10.20am, just in time to see Kai push forward to Wentnor and then he and Ali Andrews headed over the back. My analysis of the day was that we should get in the air and stay there so we wouldn’t be on the ground when it blew out, and head over the back as soon as we got the height and the sky looked good. I didn’t think the thermals would be really well developed until after 11am, but it was useful to get a feel for the air. It took me a little while to get high enough to go over the back, but looking behind me was a big blue hole. Pushing to the south (and under the good clouds) would have lead me over the sail plane winch, so I flew forward and along the ridge, losing a lot of height in the process.
As I pushed out into the valley to get a climb I could see Geoff going up like a cork popped out of a champagne bottle. I flew right under him about 100′ below him and got nothing! We eventually got high enough to go, but left low, at about 1400′ ATO. We lost the thermal over the back of the Mynd and flew towards Wenlock Edge.
From the north end of the Long Mynd, we could see Mark Wilson flying over to us from base, so I followed him, thinking ‘great, he knows what he’s doing!’. When he started flying along, not under the cloud street, I did wonder, but it was only when he joined the thermal I found, that I realised it wasn’t Mark after all!
The thermal was broken in the very strong wind and we couldn’t work it properly. Geoff landed first, followed by me, Dan (on his first UK XC – well done!) and Karol. Geoff and I managed to get a lift with Graeme and Odette and headed back for another go, but it was too windy for us. Dave Thomas got away late in very windy conditions and managed to get to Bromsgrove (and chose to land there, at home), but most people either bombed at Wenlock Edge, the Clee Hills or just beyond. Barney managed to get to Worcester, leaving all his gaggle trailing behind.
Since it wasn’t flyable for us anymore, we went to do archery instead and it was raining when we drove back over the Long Mynd on the way home. Bit of a disappointing day, especially for those who’d driven a long way.
Geoff writes: given the forecast, it was the right thing to do, get in the air early, and leave early. Judith and I left together, in a reasonable climb, which promptly died out as we were too far back to head to the front. We weren’t really bothered at that point – the climbs on the ridge had been quite strong, there were lots of nice clouds over the back, so we just drifted along expecting to get another climb. The only (small) one we got was when we were very low, and it was very difficult to stay with it, since the wind seemed to have picked up a lot, and we ended up landing, with a couple of others. The climbs over the back seemed relatively few and far between, in spite of the sky, and the lift when we did find it was weak – and other people said the same thing. Most people seemed to land somewhere between Wenlock Edge and Clee Hill, with just a very small number going further (as far as we know at this point). When Dave Thomas left the hill, much later, after we had got back, the wind was very, very top end, and most people weren’t bothering launching.
Two hang gliders left I think – Jeff Thornton getting to Ludlow, and another one, who left earlier, getting further I think.
Funny day really. Looking back on it, I don’t think we would have done anything different.
3 Responses to “Wednesday, 11th August 2010”
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Having struggled on the hill from shortly after most pilots got away – it appeared typically wavy, although not visibly in what many would have identified as such. I was in the air watching intently, and feeling it. Sometimes strangely rough on the ridge, with suppressed thermals that just wouldn’t work for long however tight you thermalled. Then large areas of lighter winds where it was relatively easy to penetrate up wind from the hill. The hill was in permanent shadow for most of 2 hours, with a blue hole behind, then some clouds and another blue hole. I thought I need a really good climb with a decent sized cloud to get to base and let it drift past the first couple of wave induced blue patches – that’s the exact opposite of how I got away, but I still think that theory was the better one to have put into practice! That I think is why the early pilots struggled behind the hill, cloudbase was not as high as when I left after 2pm, and that thended to increase the impact of the wave – squeezing it all closer to the ground. I was also very patient just drifting with whatever I could find, whereas I think the earlier pilots being more together in gaggles had a racing mentality maybe? The further I got from the Mynd, the easier it got, although that’s not the way it felt – certainly not until kidderminster, but looking at my barograph trace shows a more truthful story with me gradually climbing higher and higher until it was time to land. That also ties in exactly with RASP – better the further east – I’d have gone to another site further east if there had been one – Martin please get the winch sorted.
Interesting… There were three distinct wave bars when we arrived on site and that was one of the deciding factors for me to leave early, before the wave trashed all the thermals. There were wave bars off and on the whole afternoon, and especially so after you left.
We had huge cunims here in the evening with towering anvils heading for the Mynd at 7.15pm.
Well done on your flight. Really pleased that your holiday wasn’t wasted!
That ties in with why I didn’t actually fly directly over my house this time – because of this monstrous cloud that started to suck me up. I’ve put some stuff on the XC league storyboard – but I recon the cloud stretched 20 miles at least in each direction and I couldn’t see above it as I was too close. I’m glad I didn’t risk it now.