Geoff writes: after a run of poor flying by me, I did manage to do a decent flight today. Wayne and I went to Llangollen, along with a lot of other people. It was pretty busy, with lots of people in the air when we got there (we weren’t particularly late, just that people were eager). There was an inversion, and it was blue above, so no-one had gone XC at this point. After two abortive launches, I finally realised I had a knot in my lines, which Liz sorted out for me. Next launch was fine. I climbed out fairly quickly and got more or less up to the big gaggle. Everybody must have got bored at that point, since they all went on a glide (Grouse had already gone, and was climbing over the back, so maybe they were just following her), so I went too.

The first few km were a bit tricky, in the blue, but the gaggle I was with made it easier, for all of us. Quite a few people seemed to go down just behind Llangollen.

After that it got a lot easier, as the clouds started to form, and, for me, all the ones I went to worked. The first part of the flight, I tended to be playing catch up – which has one advantage that you can see where the lift is. Later on, when the gaggle I was in was getting smaller, I did do some leading out (maybe that’s why I went down in the end!).

Most of the climbs I was in were quite strong. Interestingly, it got rougher around 4.00pm, when I was expecting it to smooth off a little. Base was higher, I think around 4800′ was the highest I got. It was, though, an incredibly slow day, with the drift petering away to nothing – and when I landed at 5.00pm, at New Radnor, it was nil wind. Altogether, I flew for five hours – with only the first ten minutes or so on the ridge. 84km with turnpoints (my longest PG flight), so clearly a very slow day. very scenic though, with good visibility, and flying over, or close to, plenty of other sites – the Gyrn, Rodney’s, Long Mountain, Corndon, Sarn, and finally Bache.

In the end, I made a mistake, and instead of hanging around at cloudbase waiting for some clouds to form in the blue hole ahead, I took a risk, found nothing, and went down. Naturally, there were plenty of clouds ten minutes later. But I was tired, and getting impatient.

Not so tired, probably, as Grouse, who flew for seven hours and did, I think, 103km.

Wayne, who had a shorter XC than me, did the retrieve honours. Otherwise, on a bank holiday, I’d still be at the side of the road hitching.

Tracklog on XC Flights page (see top tabs) as usual. No photos. Unlike Judith, I can’t do two things at once, so flying and taking photos is impossible for me.

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