June |
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Monday 17th June Wendy said it looked good so after work I got in the car and drove off to Milk Hill. As I got there and drove up the track to the site, 2 or 3 cars were driving down from the hill which is never a good sign. Having had a chat with a couple of the drivers it transpired that the wind had been very strong and not really flyable. I exchanged details with one of the guys (Chris) and decided to drive up to the top anyway and wait for a while to see what happened. After about 15 or 20 minutes a pilot called Dave drove up and we walked to the hill. A quick assessment showed that rather than the wind strength, the direction was the problem and we decided to go to Tan Hill where the direction would be better. Having driven down to the parking area and then spent 15 minutes walking up, we found that the wind had all but died in strength but was ok for direction. The next hour or so was spent scratching about on the hill for lift and I never really got into it and I'm lucky if I got a minutes flight out of six or seven launches. Tuesday 18th June Wendy was telling me it should be flyable again, but having phoned Chris and driven down to Milk hill that evening, we were greeted by a deathly calm. We decided to head to a local pub instead. Thursday 20th June
I hadn't intended going flying today. It was a nice sunny day but there had been no wind all day long. It had got to about 5:30pm when I was sitting in the office and happened to glance out. The leaves on the tree were waving about quite healthily. I phoned Wendy, and then Chris, because Wendy had told me that it was on. It took me a while to get myself ready and eventually left to pick up Chris at about 6pm. When we got to the site we could see a yellow canopy (which happened to be Dave) in the air and another on the hill. It proved to be a very fruitful evenings soaring despite of the fact that we didn't get there and set up till way gone 7pm and I got in an hours worth of flying plus a nice easy glide back to the car to end the day off nicely.
Sunday 23rd June Having promised to do some chores at home, I spent Sunday morning and half of the afternoon staring forlornly at the sky at what looked like classic conditions. I eventually got away at about 3pm or so and was down to Milk hill after 4pm. I could tell that the conditions were very strong and there were a lot of pilots on the hill and one or two flying. I set up and waited for a while to see what the wind decided to do. I worked my way down the hill and launched, and although the conditions were a little strong I had no problem but had to make sure I stayed away from the top of the hill. My first flight was relatively short and ended in 10 minutes due to a small miscalculation in wind direction. I set up and launched again immediately. The next flight was a much more healthy 55 minutes playing with the thermals coming through. The wind was steadily strengthening and finding myself high on the hill suddenly had trouble penetrating. I spent a good few minutes on full acceleration and not getting very far. I eventually had to give in to mother nature and drift over the back. As I got to the flatland behind the hill, I was suddenly caught by a huge thermal. I had a feeling like someone had grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and yanked me upwards with my vario screaming at me. The thermal dumped me just as dramatically a few seconds later, and for a moment my canopy fluttered in the wind like a line of washing as it suffered a large front collapse. I pitched up on my cage but even as I did so the canopy recovered itself. I continued drifting backwards and gently touched down in the cornfield but didn't quite stall the canopy in time and it pulled me a little way before I got it under control.
By the time I had walked back to the hill the wind had settled a little and I stood on the hill chatting for a while to see what the wind decided to do. A little while later it looked possible again so I walked down the hill again, launched and made sure I stayed away from the hill. The wind was still very strong and I had to use full acceleration combined with big ears several times when I strayed too close to the top of the hill. I flew for about an hour with some very active piloting. I learnt a lot by today's flying and was the first time I had really used big ears and acceleration properly. On one or maybe two occasions, while pitching down fiercely on the cage I inadvertently induced a frontal tuck, but a quick pitch up was enough to recover and I never felt in any danger with it. It did help me to understand the limits of the cage though. As the two remaining pilots landed I decided to do the same but even quite closed to the ground and away from the hill, I had trouble making much headway so just packed up where I landed. Even though it was a trying day and quite hard work, I enjoyed it immensely and learnt a lot from the experience. Wednesday 26th June 15mins + 5 mins very light winds on milk hill on an evening flight. Friday 28th June
1 hour 45 mins
Saturday 29th June Milk Hill Today. Very strong
winds from the west. We waited all day but they only eased slightly. Myself
and Dan had a go. Dan got dragged and narrowly missed a barbed wire fence. I
took off first time but had a knot in my lines which was pulling one side of
my glider and I had to use big ears which caused me to land down the hill. I
thought I'd cleared the knot but hadn't as the second time I took off the same
knot was there. I tried to land back on top of the hill but during the turn
the glider spun with a heavyish landing. Finally got a flight in (15mins) but
very strong and rough conditions and eventually got caught in venturi and
landed behind the hill. Quite a frustrating day |
