| Flight details: | I spent epic Friday taking my nephew for a trial powered flying lesson at Biggin Hill -- it was a four-seater, so I got to sit in the back, which was a lot of fun. But it meant that I arrived at the Pandy campsite only in time to see a bit of evening soaring, and to hear of the massive exploits of those who went to Leckhampton.
The BCC round itself had been called for Saturday only, and we walked up despite a windy forecast. Simon Green was already up high on his Omega, as were a few hangies, but it was too strong for the rest of us, and after some parawaiting the organisers called the round off.
But we Southern Slackers are particularly good at parawaiting, so we did some more of it, finding it a more attractive prospect than crawling out from behind our windbreaking wall of glider bags.
Eventually a lull appeared. It seemed to persist, at least long enough for us to get our gliders out. It persisted a bit longer, and I tentatively took to the air. It was not nasty; in fact, I had to scratch at first before finding a few thermals to top up the ridge lift -- or perhaps it was just that the wind picked up again, too much so for the rest of the crew to launch.
The cloud cover came and went, and the lift with it. I failed to connect with two sailplanes climbing well out front, and decided that 2900 feet was too low to go over the back in such wind. But the next climb, under a thick grey cloud, took me to 3700. I set off before reaching cloudbase, not fancying applying big ears in quite lively conditions. I passed over a hangie on my glide, but he was heading back to the ridge.
The glide was sinky all the way to Table Mountain (Crug Hywel), where I soared for a bit, gaining enough height to dive around the hill and off to the flat fields west of Crickhowell. I resisted the temptation to squeak along for a few more fields in the hope of reaching my magic 20k mark, as that might have meant landing in the lee of trees.
The news that Simon had flown 122k m |
