Judith writes: The forecast was for SW but it was windy from the word go and we were less than optimistic about the flying prospects. At one point we were debating whether it was actually worth going out at all. Clatter is very wind affected, so if it’s blowing at home, the chances are it will be howling at Clatter. We decided to go have a look just on the off chance. It was windy all the way there but to our amazement, the wind was fine at Clatter, just too far off to the south. We got ready and waited but once the wind came on it got far too windy.

Martin Knight and Dave Thomas turned up too and the wind started lulling at times. Collectively we decided that it was probably ok once we were in the air. Geoff went first and nearly went down and we all scratched and scrabbled around for half an hour getting weak climbs which drifted you over the back too quickly. I was getting less optimistic about getting away, although the sky looked like you had to try to stay low.

At one point I pushed forward to try to get a thermal, only to turn round see the three little monkeys had climbed up without me! I got into the sink from their thermal and thought, ‘this is it – they’re off and I have to drive retrieve for them because I have landed in the bottom field’. I got very low and then hit a lovely strong thermal and climbed up and level with them in no time. I drifted towards them, so we were all together by the time we got to cloudbase.

The clouds were weird, there were different layers, so we were above some, beneath others. It was really magical. We stayed under the cloud for a while, drifting in and out of the lift. Geoff lost the lift and went down for a very disappointing 22km. (He’s very annoyed.)

The rest of us carried on. We could see Middletown and Rodney’s Pillar clearly ahead and I made it my first target. It took another hour of patient circling to get there! At one point Martin got really low and then his GPS batteries failed, but he managed to change them and then climbed back up to Dave and me. We got a good climb near Oswestry and were at base, but high cirrus was chasing us and we needed to push forward. At this point my GPS was indicating low batteries and I panicked. I had no idea how long the batteries would last, so I went for a rummage in my flight deck trying to get out my spares without dropping my phone or purse and killing a pedestrian 4000′ below me. Because I was flying randomly, hands off and looking at my flight deck rather than where I was going and sinking like mad, it took me away from the cloud street. I tried to find another thermal, but was unsuccessful. I landed between Whittington and Ellesmere, for 53km. I have been just short of 50km a few times and I have wanted to crack that distance for such a long time that I was so happy when I landed, despite being a little annoyed about my GPS. Dave made it to beyond Ellesmere and Martin got another thermal and he got to Wrenbury, near Nantwich for 81km! Fantastic flight and PBs for all three of us. It’s worth noting too that he flew from Powys, through Shropshire and into Cheshire.

Geoff had hitched back to Church Stoke where we’d left our other car, so was able to pick us all up really fast. We had dinner in the pub Martin landed next to and then drove back to Clatter to collect the cars. We got home at 11.30pm completely exhausted.

It was certainly my most memorable XC. The clouds, views and flying with the guys really made it special.

See photos of today.

5 Comments »