Geoff writes: a pretty good day in the end. Andy and Bry stayed here last night. This morning we went out to the Long Mynd, a little late because Andy had been giving us a briefing on airspace in the Peak District. Lots of PGs in the air, but quite strong, and forecast stronger, so I hesitated choosing which wing to fly. In the end, I chose the PG. Judith launched before me, then I launched, and got whipped up 500′. Too scared to turn, I pushed, slowly, forwards. After messing around on the front for a while, never getting low, Judith and I climbed out – she was a bit higher and further back – with one other glider. Andy climbed out a little later.

Getting to base, Judith had already gone on a glide, and I eventually followed her. She got very low behind Caradoc, and got a snotty little climb from a few hundred AGL. I went in high above her, and watched as she climbed straight past me! We both got to base again, her a bit sooner than me, and she went off on a glide, rather than wait for me. A fatal mistake for her, she got nothing, and eventually landed for about 19k.

I was more patient, and got another couple of climbs – it was hard to keep out of cloud. The wind had picked up, and Judith had said it was strong when she landed, so I was travelling downwind pretty fast. Airspace was becoming a problem, as were my GPS batteries – in spite of registering full at the start of the flight, they were now nearly empty, and I didn’t want to negotiate airspace without the GPS.

In the end, I decided to land, and just went for a long glide from base to the ground – flying through lift on the way. This was, obviously, a bad mistake, since once I looked at the airspace more closely, I could possibly have successfully negotiated it, and been on track for a much longer flight than the 41k I did.

But I was pleased with the flight, for once I thought I flew quite well. Base, for me, was about 4800′ – less further south. Mark Leavesley (Happy Birthday, BTW) did 71k, with a base of 4100. Martin Knight and some others got to Kidderminster, not sure how far.  And some people did a lot less.

My claim to fame today is that leaving at the same time, in the same air, as the leader of the XC league, I managed to fly signficantly further than him (oh well, 4k!). Doesn’t often happen that I outfly Andy (in fact, probably never has before, or will again), but it is nice when it does!

Tracklogs on the XC pages, see tab at top of the page.

Oh, and just to put our flights into perspective, the Midland Gliding Club, the sailplane pilots at the Mynd, have a comp on this week. Yesterday – on what was to us a very indifferent day, with the max height about 900′ ATO – one of their pilots flew from from the Mynd to the Isle of Wight, and got back as far as Shobden. That’s a very long flight!

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