Geoff writes: A good day at the Long Mynd for us, eventually. A great XC sky. Judith and I were probably the first to leave – which was a mistake, we went far too early. Base was only 3500′, and the thermals were scrappy and broken, in spite of the good clouds. We both bombed around Craven Arms, in different places. I managed to hitch a ride right back to launch, and rushed to relaunch – so much so that I didn’t look at what people were doing, and ended up almost immediately on my way to the bottom landing. So rather than go down, I decided to slope land, very low down, in bracken which turned out to be taller than me. The glider overflew me, and was in a real mess. I stuffed it in the bag and walked back up, then spent about 45 minutes untangling the lines. I was extremely unhappy at this point!

By the time I was ready to launch again, Judith was back, in the air, and leaving for her second XC. She got to Bridgnorth. I got away pretty fast, and was on my own for all my flight. The drift was towards the north, rather than to the south as it was the first flight – not a good direction, airspace is always an issue.

I got low a couple of times, but the conditions were far better, and base was around 5100. I got to Bridgnorth, then tracked north to avoid the airspace. In retrospect, I should just have flown between the two ATZs (or over them, which might have been possible at one point), especially as the wind had changed back, and now had a northerly component, which I didn’t really realise until too late. The tracking to the north put me down in the end, for 42km with turnpoints. OK, but not brilliant, and a lot of people went further, including Dave Thomas who landed near Rugeley for 82km (his second personal best in three days); and Andy Wallace and Liz Sampson who did in the 90s.

Still, the way I’ve been flying recently, this was a good result. The fundamental mistake was leaving too early; a bit later would have seen base higher, and a track to the south, which is easier (though Dave went north for his 82km. so it was possible!).

Judith writes: I knew it was a mistake to go early, but it seemed like we’d get more of the day and the sky looked good. Hmmm. Katie was an angel and picked me up and this allowed me to have another go. I got off and straight up and away. Just over the A49 I got very low and I was kicking myself for my impatience. I was convinced I had got a second chance and blew it by dashing off and I would have to land in the same field as earlier. I went on glide to a brown field and promised whoever could make it happen that if I got a third chance at the day I would be more patient, honest. Whoever can make it happen was listening. I got the thermal and was on my way.

I was having real trouble staying in the thermal – which ever way I extended my circle it would disappear. My usual trouble is falling out of the back of it, so I pushed upwind more. Didn’t work. The wind earlier was WNW and it was forecast to become more northerly as the day went on, so I pushed more that way. Didn’t work. In the end I realised I wasn’t drifting enough downwind with the thermal and the wind had turned W/WSW, so once I got my brain to accept not what the BBC told me, but what I could feel and see, it all went a lot more smoothly.

I got a big climb to near cloudbase over Wenlock Edge and then another near Brown Clee, but I was heading to Brigdnorth and airspace. The clouds were good that way, so I went with it. I got low over the back of Brown Clee and climbed back up with a buzzard. He was all over the shop. Pleasingly, he seemed pretty confused about the direction the thermal was going as well. If it’s tricky for the experts, I can be forgiven for finding it hard.

The buzzard and I both lost/blundered out of the thermal and I headed off to a ridge/brown field. I was low by this time, only about 200 feet above the ground. I was thinking this was it for the day when I hit a horrible, horrible thermal. It decided to play chicken with me and it won. After two very big surges, each followed by 50% asymmetric collapses I cut and run. I know some people revel in this kind of stuff, fight it out, get back to cloud base and dine out on the story for the rest of their days – but not me. I was way too low for comfort and given the choice between that and being on the ground, I can live with landing at 31km.

Next to the place where I landed was a house and mother and three kids came out to see me. I did a ‘show and tell’ with my kit and all the kids got to sit in my harness, play with my vario, GPS and radio until it got to the time when Ali was picking me up, when I had to frantically rush around the field chasing excited children to get my equipment back. I think it’s all back in the bag, although I might find a stray child in there tomorrow as well. Oops.

No comments yet - please add one »