Judith writes: Finally a flyable day! The lead-up to today was interesting, since the forecast changed nearly hourly and they had a huge degree of uncertainty as to what would actually happen. What seemed clear yesterday was that it would be better further south, as the front would be coming down from the north. I also surmised that the flyable window would be short and that there was a chance that it would become blown out by lunchtime. Given all this, we decided to head for Frocester, to give ourselves more time in the day, and RASP was giving it better thermal strength there too. A quick last minute check with Wayne Seeley had our decision confirmed, but luckily he told us about the Battle of Britain airshow at Kemble, just downwind from Frocester. I don’t like mixing it with airspace and have enough trouble concentrating on the flying without the added workload of negotiating an aerial battle reenactment. Anyway, I don’t think they had paragliders taking part in the Battle of Britain, so for authenticity sake, I thought it was only fair we didn’t go.

We considered the Malverns, but opted for the good old Long Mynd (and a lie in!) instead. We got there relatively early (10.30am) and set up fast. People were leaving as we were getting ready, so time to get a move on. I launched and vowed to get away as soon as I could, as I could already see the front getting closer. The plan worked well and I left pretty much straight away, on my own. I connected with a climb over Ragleth and then carried on over Wenlock Edge. I could see a group of others struggling over Brown Clee and made a mental note to have that as a difficult area for the day and to make sure I was at base/heading for a good cloud when I got there.

Getting from Wenlock Edge to Brown Clee was a hard slog and I probably should have abandoned my slow climb for a faster one, as it would have bought me more time ahead of the front. However, I didn’t push and then got low behind Brown Clee, which was partly caused by some erratic bimbling while I got my inner gloves out and on – my hands were freezing. I was nearly down, when I spotted two tractors turning a field. I figured that it had to work. Frost in the morning, strong sun and green fields all around the ones they were working in… no brainer, surely?

I got the tell-tale roughness over the field, so bits were being released, I just needed to sit it out until the whole thermal released. I hung on, telling myself ‘never say die’ and all that, and then it popped and I got the strongest climb of the flight all the way up to base at 4000′. I then had to make a decision… follow the cloud street towards Birmingham airspace, or try to edge more south and make a long distance more feasible. Since my shortest flight was 41km, I decided to go for it and headed out to a cloud away from the street, which turned out to be decaying. I flew over the place I landed near Kidderminster last week and extended my flight a little, to land on the edge of Wolverley.

It was a scoring flight at 46km, but in hindsight, I should have stuck with the street, given that the front was catching up with me. At this stage in the game, you need to take some risks and try to fly tactically, so what that it didn’t work out!

Geoff didn’t have a good day. He had a tangle in his lines and spent ages sorting it out, only to get bracken in his lines about six times, so he was off late and then got caught in the strong winds. He didn’t get away and eventually elected to land in the bottom with a number of other pilots. What a difference half an hour makes! With the front close, he chose to come and get me, and we picked up Krzysztof and Karol on the way, as they had landed not far from me. It was raining when we got back to the Long Mynd at 3.30pm. So the day was short indeed.

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