Long Mynd - Thursday 7 August

Today started well. So well in fact, that it has been possible to confirm yesterday's unconfirmed rumour - Adrian smiled.  In fact today at breakfast he was smiling, singing and laughing - all witnessed by a large number of people.

Matthew W SF27 had an hour of 'hard work' local soaring in the morning. Meanwhile everyone else hung around like vultures bothering him on the radio to assess conditions. Eventually Henry F, Paul S, Steve W, Paul L and Adrian P all decided the time was right and went off on separate cross country missions. Steve went into Wales ventured past Oswestry and back followed by Newtown and back - approx 160 km. Paul S went to Newtown and back followed by some bimbling around the valley enjoying the view - around 3 hours in total. Henry F did a 96 km out and return. Paul L fell out with both his available GPS systems and followed his nose home after almost reaching Carno, later he discovered he'd achieved silver height! Dave C had a few launches and failed to stay up before being nagged/encouraged by Matthew W, who pointed out his chances of staying up were slim while stood on the ground. He then managed a more successful flight despite not 'getting away'.

Roger was back with the T21 for an all day session. Chris C, Jack CW, Matthew W all had flights - Jack and Matthew both soaring. Thanks to Roger for the amount of pleasure flights he's completed, although he appears to enjoy it just as much as his passengers. Matthew donated a bottle of red to help lubricate his/his gliders joints.

Dave W and Mark C had a good flight of a couple of hours to the mountains just short of Porthmadog Wales.

Tim P and Mark C launched at 4pm and following a 0.6 knot climb above site eventually reached a height where conditions improved and achieved 5300 ft QNH. They headed west and got to just short of Welshpool on a mini cross-country practice - thermalling techniques, cloud picking, etc.  Any spare height got burnt off on a 130 knot final glide back to Long Mynd in the early evening sunshine.  

The evening began with more model flying (obviously), then half the group enjoyed steaks cooked by the amazing Helen/Dave combo and half went to Church Stretton for fish'n'chips/kebabs.

Congratulations to Dave Clements - nominated as 'most improved' pilot over the holiday.

After today's final flight Mark used an alternative word to 'staggering' to describe the day/week so far but Tim couldn't remember what it was. All that matters is it meant the same!