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Jonny Member Member#: 394 Location: North West Registered: 06-10-2003 Diary Entries: 350 Mood: waitin for the next blow! |
30th May 2004 Paragliding - Gliding: Long Mynd Wind Direction: WSW Wind Stength: 10 - 20mph Surf / Sea State: n/a Air Temperature: 14C Sea Temperature: n/a Weather: Sunshine/freq. heavy showers Max Speed: Distance Covered: Decided to head along to the British Open Hang Gliding competition which was being held at the Long Mynd. Got there about 12ish and everyone was rigged and ready to go. Only problem was there was hardly a breath of wind and frequent heavy showers in our patch. Everywhere else had lovely cumulus but it was just the Mynd that continued to have the horrible overdeveloping dark clouds. There were about 80 hang gliders rigged up on the hillside, never seen so many at one site, about 65 of them being competition pilots. I thought I may as well have a go at the competition as the goal was 55km to a microlight airfield north of Telford so I typed in the waypoints into my GPS. After the heavy showers had passed, the wind suddenly picked up and some of the top pilots decided it was time to leave. They only managed to stay a couple of 100 feet above the ridge until the thermal activity died. They quickly top landed before they were going down. It was then a case of waiting for the next window, half an hour or so later, it picked up again and everyone launched into the skies. It was an incredible site seeing so many hang gliders swamping the Mynd's skies. I got the video camera out to get some incredible footage. Just as I did, I heard a bit of a commotion down at take off so I rushed down and saw a hang glider flying by itself. The pilot forgot to clip in on take off; luckily he realised and let go, never seen a hang glider fly on its own, it flew so well until it spiralled into the hill side. I decided it was time to launch as the skies were looking better and more than half of the competition had already taken off. I pushed my way to the front and eventually took off, it was then a case of watching all the other gliders to see who had caught a thermal. I caught a few which were very broken up on the hill side so I headed South along the ridge past the Gliding club with a few other gliders. I noticed a pilot a few hundred metres away from the ridge circling in very strong lift so headed of to his direction. Got there and contacted it beautifully, cranked the glider round and turned in the tight core managing a nice steady 700 f per min climb. A few other gliders including 2 sail planes saw us climbing so joined into our thermal. Just over a 1000 feet above the ridge level, the thermal just broke up and we all lost the thermal. I then had to make the decision whether or not to go back to the ridge or go over the back of the ridge on a straight glide towards Telford. 2 other hang gliders who were the same height as me went for the glide whilst I chickened out and headed towards the ridge. Got back to ridge level only a 100 feet above and tried to search for more thermals. It was now getting late in the day and pretty much all the competition pilots had left so I thought I would be better of just soaring the ridge as I couldnt be bothered with the hassle of sorting a retrieve late in the day. I flew around for a couple of hours and around 6ish, we started to get some gentle Wave lift which gave us some good height gains. I just soared the ridge until around 8ish when I decided to call it a day and top landed by my car. It was a great day out and had more than 3 hours air time so definately worthy of 5 stars, Stoked! Just wish I had gone for the glide when I topped out at 1300 feet above the ridge, who knows how far I could of got. Its a pity theres crap flying weather for the next 2 days otherwise I'd be back for the competition. |
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