Another high pressure hazy day. Wind forecasts were very contradictory and we expected some thundery showers later on, so we were hoping this would break the inversion and give us some cumulus for a while. We originally thought of going to Bache, but after a report of hazy skies, weak thermals, strong inversion, we decided to stay local and go to Corndon. If it was rubbish we could always go to archery instead.

The wind went from gentle to strongish pretty quickly and it was on the SE face of Corndon. Steve Pym was already flying and Mark had just finished a tandem, but it seemed breezy and as we were chatting wave bars set up. Of all the things, I wasn’t expecting wave today. They got bigger as we waited and started extending out into the valley ahead as well. When high cloud also came in, Mark had a short flight but landed as he felt there was too much lift around. We could no longer assess what was above us and with storms forecast for later we decided to abandon the flying and do something else.

We got to the bottom of the hill and then the sky rapidly cleared, but the wind picked up. We couldn’t resist the temptation and drove back up, collecting all the wings we’d just driven down for people back up. By the time we got out of the car it was completely sunny, with just wave cloud and haze downwind. But it was windy.

Mark, David, Gwyn, Steve, Alan and John launched, but it looked rough. Lots of pitching of gliders, small (and one not so) collapses and sometimes zero penetration in the air made me decided to leave it for a better (and safer) day. Unfortunately, the fact that mixing wind, wave, thermals and cunims (albeit in the distance) doesn’t make for good flying conditions was proved by one pilot. Hope he gets well soon.

It did storm late afternoon/early evening, so we didn’t even go do archery. Hope we lose this damn airmass soon!

No comments yet - please add one »