Judith's blog

Another grey, gloomy day, although Graeme did fly at Elan Valley. We have various bits of work to do (like tying up loose ends for the LMSC and Ager Women’s Open stuff) so we got on with that. The plan was to go to archery in the afternoon, but having done a few minutes of gardening, I decided it was too cold! We’re having some trouble acclimatising to the temperatures here. Everyone tells us it’s positively balmy in comparison to the winter, but I’ve been in three to four layers every day – and that’s when I’m inside the house!

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Geoff writes: the main event today was the Long Mynd Soaring Club AGM. I’ve been chairman of the LMSC for the last two years, and Judith has been Communications Officer for the last three; we both stood down last night. Whilst it’s been very interesting, often enjoyable, sometimes very difficult (we have had to deal with some quite serious issues in this time, with one or two incredibly selfish and arrogant people) we felt it was the right time to resign. This is partly because we want to do other things with our time now, partly because there are serious disadvantages, both personally and for the club, in being involved and very active whilst we are both sitting on the same committee. We honestly feel (possibly being somewhat arrogant ourselves!) that the club is in a much stronger position now than it was when we joined, and, very importantly, that we are leaving behind a strong committee which will maintain the work of the club. It’s been a great pleasure to work with such a group of people.

Many ordinary club members – not just of the LMSC, but probably of most organisations – wildly underestimate the amount of work required in the background, done quietly by small groups of dedicated people. Without a committee to do the bulk of the work, the club would not survive. Without the club, there would be far fewer, or possibly even no, flying sites locally. All flyers in the UK owe a huge debt to the numerous flying clubs, large and small, which protect our flying. Pilots who don’t join their local club are just selfish freeloaders and parasites (there’s a nice play on words there…).

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Geoff writes: the forecast was windy for the Long Mynd, and that’s how it turned out. Great sky, strong thermals, but too windy for PGs. However, there were a lot of hang gliders there, and, not having flown the HG all winter, I was determined to go too. However, I didn’t have any intention of going XC (just in case it dropped early enough to go on the PG, stupid really), so we ambled out relatively late. As we arrived, we saw three HGs going over the back, and there were probably others before and after. Inevitably, I was a bit nervous, but did a fine launch, flew for over an hour, and had a good landing in the strong winds. The thermals were very strong, but not particularly rough, base was pretty high (though I left before base) and with the drift I’m sure the HGs who did go, went a long way. If we find out how far, I’ll append it to this post.

My thermalling on the HG was rusty, and I ache a lot from keeping my head up – paragliders are much easy, physically, to fly, and do have the huge advantage that you can see the clouds all the time, without doing neck contortions. I’m certain that does give them an advantage when flying XC.

It was nice to see so many hang gliders out, not seen so many for years, outside a competition.

So I enjoyed the flying; just a shame it didn’t drop off enough (until quite late, by which time we had gone) for Judith to fly on the paraglider.

Update: it is rumoured that Carl Wallbank did 190 km on the hang glider from the Long Mynd. For paragliders, the south was the place to be today (because it was so windy further north) with Liddington being the site, good in strong winds, with the best from there so far being Jim Mallinson, 126 km, landing at the coast at Worthing.

See photos of today.

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Geoff writes: rainy in the morning, sunny in the afternoon, but way too windy. So a day for catching up on jobs. Tuesday looks like it could be a great day, with very strong thermals – but again, too windy. We’ll see what happens.

Yet again, the north was the place to be yesterday, with about 20 flights posted in the League, mostly from the Lakes, Pennines and Scotland. Relatively short though, 45km max, average around 25km. But still, a lot more than was done around here. People do say – I don’t know how true this is, but it certainly seems to be this year – that the Mynd area is much better later on in the season. Let’s hope so. Given that the number of XCs in the league from Mynd sites this year is very close to zero (well, one actually, of 13.5km), that seems accurate. Phil Colbert is leading the league (at time of writing this posting), with his top six flights totalling 406.9 km, all from the Peak District northwards. In the club league, the first southern club is Avon, in eighth place, with 229.4km – compared with the top club, Pennines, with 1228.2km (which includes Phil’s total). An incredible score, this early in the year. When we’re in Spain, we always get asked if it’s possible to go XC in the UK, do we get thermals here? If only they could see these figures!

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What a wind-up the forecast was! People were talking about east-going-west and more wind than predicted, but on looking this morning, I had my doubts about all of them and particularly wether RASP got it right on Snowdonia, so I decided the Malverns would be the place to be, rather than Corndon or the Gyrn.

We got there at 12 o’clock and the first people we bumped into were Sebastian Ospina, Alex and Wayne Seeley. It was also really nice to finally meet Charles Norwood. Great to catch up with everybody. 

It was only just getting properly flyable, but it looked like it could improve, so despite people getting some height over the hill we waited a while. Wayne slope landed, reporting he got 800′ ATO, so we were hoping (against the forecast), that the inversion would break like it did yesterday. Geoff launched before me and got up straight away. I got off in a good cycle and also got to 800′ a couple of times, but I was just bouncing up against the inversion and the sink in between the thermals was pretty bad, so I slope landed while I had the chance.

A few people went down and then one guy on an Axis Venus climbed up from the landing field, past launch, went along the ridge and managed to punch through the inversion at the south end of the ridge. We last saw him heading to Ledbury. He did really well and was the only person to go XC. After that it was only Alex and another pilot who got up and had good flights. Anyone low stayed low, slope landed, or went down. In the end Geoff gave it a go, followed by Nigel Brevitt, but both went down and this inspired a mass pack up and walk down.

It’s the first time I have ever actually flown the ridge at the Malverns – i.e. soared the ridge and landed on it. Every other time I have been fortunate to get off, up and away, so it was nice to actually look at the ridge and scenery around.

I gave up on the flying at 5pm, drove down to collect Geoff  and we decided to go to the British Camp iron age hill fort, which we have seen so many times from the air, but never actually walked up. Stunning place with amazing views.

See photos of today.

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Geoff writes: a strongish forecast, but it seemed the place to be was Bache. Others thought so too, and there was a good turnout from the Long Mynd Soaring Club, and the Malverns Club too. When we arrived it was quite breezy. Paragliders flew early on, then it picked up a bit, it seemed quite rough, with some bad collapses (though Briggsy took it all in his stride), and the sky eventually was left to the two hang gliders, Jason and Tim, who had the best of it – it was very thermic then, with some good cumulus cloud development. It later dropped off slightly, and the PGs again took to the air. It was still breezy, and penetration was slow, but the lift seemed to be everywhere, and they all got some great heights (4000′ AMSL), and managed to push a long way forward. Not me and Judith though – we were amongst the last to take off, being a bit (overly) cautious in strong winds, having just got back from Spain, where we never fly in more than 14mph. But we still had a pleasant, if not spectacular, flight.

See photos of today.

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The forecast for this morning was light, near non-existent, winds. There was some discrepancy over direction too, but we decided to go with the synoptic, and go to Llangollen. We decided to car share with Mark L. and got to catch up on all the gossip on the way. We were all expecting just to sit around in the sunshine most of the day, so we were amazed to see gliders high and happily soaring. A quick catch-up with Briggsy later, I got in the air. Martin had already been flying a while and said how strong the inversion was, and it was easy to get to 800′ ATO, but to get to 1000′ was a real struggle. Over the back it was completely blue and with only 1000′ it was clear we weren’t going anywhere.

I had a fun flight and then landed to have a comfort break. A few people had gone down to the bottom landing, so I decided I would go on a mercy mission and collect them. I got to the bottom junction to find Sprinty had beaten me to it! Once I got back to take-off, nobody was flying and the wind had turned completely east. We all sat around for another hour and then gave up. It was beer o’clock anyway.

I did twitter the flyability of the site, but didn’t realise that the text wasn’t sent until I switched the phone back on on the way home. Doh!

See photos of today.

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