Judith's blog

What great fun today was! (Bear with me if I ramble on…)

Geoff had a dentist appointment this morning (that was the less fun part of the day!), and as we drove to Bishop’s Castle to have his teeth checked we knew it was going to be a good day. We should have cancelled the appointment to get out sooner, but you never know these things in advance. Michaela had kindly offered to give me some more coaching with forward launches, but by the time she arrived at our house there were no thoughts of ground handling. We needed to get in the air.

South west is a bad direction here, and there was some debate whether
Clatter was flyable. A phone call to Mark the vet yesterday confirmed that is is still easily possible to launch (over the fence and the new trees), so off we went.

The sky was good when we got there but the wind was picking up. Mark Stewart (Mark the vet) and Paul from Dunstable were already there and were rigging their hang gliders. We got the PGs ready, but the wind picked up and it became a bit iffy to launch. We sat around for two hours, during which time Paul went XC, but Mark went from getting high to struggling, whilst the high cloud came and went. It was typical thermic wind – less wind when the sky is overcast, more when the sun is out. There were also no birds around.

By 4pm the wind dropped and I got ready. The sun came out, the sky was back to epic and the wind stayed ok so I launched. It was pants. I struggled to get above 180’ATO. As I soared back and forth I was obviously not inspiring either Geoff or Michaela, who kindly gave me some room to work my way up by not launching. When I got to 200′ ATO I noticed a new feature in the landscape… a wind farm at ridge height straight behind Clatter. At 250’ATO you are level with the blades. Certainly makes you leave only with a good climb!

I got the good climb eventually and worked it for all it was worth. Being nervous about crossing the wind farm low I made sure I was in good strong lift. I thermalled up to 2828′ ATO and was on my merry way. Mark was ahead of me under a good cloud street so I was confident I would at least go a scoring distance.

Recently I have been trying to work on my patience and I was determined to stay in the air as long as possible today, rather than going for distance. I was chatting to the clouds, trying to persuade them to let me go on a little walk with them. (If you think that sounds downright silly, try it sometime when you are in your 56th rotation in the same thermal!).

I had a chat with Mark Leavesley yesterday and he told me to take my time, let the glider and the air talk to me and go upwind to find the thermals if I loose them. Big thanks to Mark for the advice, it really worked! Anyway, to make a long story short (too late!), I landed at Llanfyllin, 27km away. Not bad for 6pm.

The retrieve was a hoot. A nice gentleman gave me a lift, and was determined to get the local landlady to give me a free pint for flying there. Shame the pub was shut. He tried to local youths next, but they lent me a phone, but no pints were forthcoming. I was befriended by the local wino bag lady who claimed to be a management consultant for British Steel. The world needs more management consultants like her!

I was deep in conversation about worm farms with a guy called Martin when Michaela picked me up. I recommend landing there. It’s like Royston Vasey – you’ll never leave!

Geoff’s comments: Clatter is a good site, much underused. Nice top and bottom landings, and excellent XC potential. In a true SW you could go a very long way! The farmer has planted trees and a fence just below launch, but neither are likely to be a problem for a few years. The only real issue is that they do hinder slope landing, so it might be best to have enough wind to ridge soar whilst waiting for the thermals. Probably not a good place for low air timers. Clatter is a Long Mynd Club members only site. Oh, one other thing – you need a combination to the padlock, otherwise you have to walk a bit – not too bad with a PG, it’s flat, but a pain with an HG.

See photos of today.

See video of Paul launching at Clatter today.

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