Monday, 16th August 2010
Posted by Judith on 17 Aug 2010 at 10:03 am | Tagged as: Flying
Richard Westgate’s second Gradient record encampment has started and he called today as a potential record breaking day in our area. We were a bit dubious about the possible wind strength and suggested they go to Long Mountain. Once they established that the Long Mynd was howling, they came along with us. We met Ken Wilkinson and the BCC stragglers there, so there were plenty of markers around. The wind had been howling on the way, but as usual on Long Mountain, the wind was much lighter on take-off and while there were periods when it was top end, it was flyable.
Richard, Kai and Mark Jones got away as the first gaggle; Ben Friedland got away later and then it was a succession of dribblers going XC. The front appeared to be coming in early (unless it was a false front?) as the high cloud appeared above us. I took this as a sign to get on with it, but the climbs were slow and difficult and coupled with the strong wind, this meant it was necessary to leave the hill low. It took ages for me to get any usable height and I got a separate climb from the others but joined Ken, Paddy and Dave Thomas once over the back.
I was flying shockingly bad. I felt really rusty in the air, not having thermalled properly for seven weeks. I had endless trouble finding cores, and the others in the gaggle outclimbed me easily. I just couldn’t find a comfortable turning position. I minced along until I was decked over the other side of Wenlock Edge, and it was only due to the strong wind that I got that far. I never got higher than 3000′ AMSL! A lot of us were down in the same area, but Martin managed to connect with the good sky just ahead and carried on to do another 100km, scoring 130km and getting into the 100 Club. Well done.
There were four flights over 100km from Long Mountain, so it was a good call!
3 Responses to “Monday, 16th August 2010”
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Do not berrate yourself over poor thermalling. It was simply a case of the lower you were the harder it was to climb, with very weak thermals, getting better when higher. We were in that area of misty high cloud weakening the conditions, so when the thermals kicked off they were moving fast in the wind and not picking up enough warm air as they went. Kai said that apart from early on when it was very sunny, his climbs were poor as well. It does show what fantastic flights can be done with a lot of skill and a little luck, when conditions don’t look perfect. Waiting on the hill for the perfect sky which rarely exists leads to no XC’s, so everyone did well in reality.
I’ve just seen the BPCup results – I haven’t won the 1/2 class and thats going to be amended by Simon Ford shortly. However it does show that if I had been able to turn up on the Saturday and Sunday at Snowdon – or even just gone on Sunday, I could have got into the top three overall by simply flying half reasonably – which would have been a better outcome than that long XC from Corndon that I was hoping for on Sunday!. It’s such a great pity for all the BPCup competitors who did the whole series and had so little flying.
On the point of competitions, I’m currently exploring some possibilities for a Long Mynd competition (or series of) next spring, but more focussed on decent weather forecasts. I’ll discuss with you/committee when I have more detail.
Hi Dave,
Thanks for your kind words, but there is a thermalling issue that I do need to work on. For the first 12 or so years of my flying I was completely incapable of turning right. It made me feel giddy and I was just really uncoordinated. When I bought the Aspen it wouldn’t turn left easily, so I started turning right all the time and I am now completely incapable of turning left. I feel as if I am falling out of the turn all the time. It’s nothing to do with my glider, but I may look at my harness again.
On Monday there were thermals were I should have been thermalling left. The drift made it hard to thermal right and I think that was one of the reasons I was finding it hard to stay in them. I have largely ignored doing something about not being able to thermal comfortably both ways and I know this is a huge disadvantage in comps, so I have to stop being lazy about this and actually do something positive about it. It did cost me a longer distance on Monday.
SO something to work on over winter in Spain. One day left, one day right. After six months I might actually crack it!
Judith