Geoff writes: for some time, we have consistently failed to fly Berga, usually by picking days when it was too windy or the wrong direction. Today, with Nicky Moss and Mark Graham, we finally managed it, and had an exceptionally good day. We launched from Segunda Maria, me being the last of us to launch. I climbed out after a few minutes and got a couple of thousand feet ATO, and dropped onto the spineback ridge behind – that height took me to about level with it, so it’s  a lot higher than launch. Behind that is a valley, then another ridge – or maybe mountain – again a lot higher than the second ridge. I climbed another thousand feet, and could have dropped on to the third ridge, but was worried about getting back to the front – it would have been some kilometres – and having to land in the valley between the second and third ridges, which would have meant a long retrieve. So I went back to launch, and a little in front and finally bottom landed to join the other three.

We went for a sandwich, then drove up again, and I flew the new Artik 2, which Xiliu has given us for a few days. It was early evening, and pretty smooth, though still some small thermals, so not a full test of the glider, but it seemed very nice with much better penetration and glide than the Hook, and very easy to thermal. It wasn’t twitchy at all, but then the air was quite smooth. I’ll fly it again in more thermic conditions in the next day or two.

A great day out.

Judith writes: Nicky was first off and Mark launched second. It was very cyclic and they got into a sink cycle, which they fought out and then got high. I launched as they were thermalling out. I climbed 200 feet straight after launch without turning, but then hit something and had a huge blowout. About 70% of the wing went, it popped out with a huge bang and then the other side collapsed a little and then it was all fine again. We were watching Jocky Sanderson’s Performance Flying DVD last night and I just thought: stay calm, keep it smooth and concentrate on the positive. The wing handled it fine – I dropped a bit, but didn’t turn. So I kept flying, although I did look for a smoother thermal. I got to 1300′ ATO between launch and the ridge behind, but then headed back to the front through big sink. I thermalled around the front of the ridge for a while, but then went down. I took the opportunity of a grassy field to do some ground handling. As Geoff says, gorgeous evening flight and all with good company!

See photos of today.

See Nicky’s photos of today.

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