The forecast this morning wasn’t clear at all. The Wales forecast had arrows pointing in every direction, but in north Wales it was going to be NW and RASP said thermal development would be good, getting better the further south you flew. We headed off to Llangollen and got there to find the Pennine Posse, of Cris Miles, Phil Wallbank, Simon Baillie and Mark Wilson already there. What we also found was that it was varying between ENE and NE! We got ready and slowly the wind came on enough to soar and catch thermals. Cris, Mark and another pilot took off and got high and we followed in pursuit. I flew along over the trees and got a thermal to cloudbase over the back. I was on my way, although not with others, who were a little ahead. They were climbing more efficiently than me, but I was content to happily drift up (although not really along) with the thermal. Geoff was still climbing in the Llangollen valley, so I didn’t want to rush off. As I was near cloudbase over the back, Geoff had gone on a glide, but chose a bad line and glided from 3000′ ATO to the ground. He was gutted!

I headed off and could see 5 guys a cloud ahead of me, climbing in line with a brilliant cloud street. I promised myself that I wouldn’t get sucked into Jocky’s ‘wedge of failure’ (see the XC tips for an explanation), so I just ignored them and kept thermalling in the lift I had. I am easily distracted from making my own decisions when other gliders are around me, so I let them get even more headway and then was able to just think about what I was doing, although I did keep an eye out for where they were getting lift/sink.

The drift was negligible and I was thermalling along this really flyable looking ridge, when I realised it was the Gyrn. Doh! At the 20km mark I got low and was then distracted by people chatting to me from Corndon, but I got a thermal off a ridge and this connected me back with the cloud street and I was away again. At 30km saw Simon very, very low and soaring a ridge when he hooked an excellent thermal. I carried on along the cloud street, when it petered out. I had two choices – to glide to his climb, which I would reach low, or carry on down wind to find a ground source. If you can see a sign and don’t have a more clear source/trigger go with the sign, so I headed to Simon. I never found the climb…

So a downwind dash to a village saw me find a boomer, but I was already set up for a landing and it was rough. I would do a 360, have a collapse, recover, chase the thermal, hit the side of it, have a collapse… Needless to say, I lost it and landed, just to see Mark get the thermal instead. Story of my life…

The sky looked fantastic when I landed and I was kicking myself for being patient the whole flight, only to blow it at the first tricky bit. I was convinced that everyone had flown to the coast, and it was only me who landed after 40km. Turns out I wasn’t the only one. Still, the flight taught me loads, but it also illustrated to me how much I need to learn! Maybe tomorrow…

View the flight (new window).

Geoff writes: 3000′ ATO to the ground, without a sniff of a thermal, in spite of flying under the cloud street. Oh well, there’s plenty more days yet.

On a sadder note, we mentioned that on Sunday we saw a glider which had crashed at the Mynd, resulting in a fatality.  We have just learned that the person was Mark Smallwood, who was also an LMSC paragliding member.  It is always tragic when there is an accident or death, and this is the second in this area within a couple of months. Our thoughts are with his family and friends, and on behalf of the LMSC we extend our sincere condolences to them.

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