Tuesday's task was named Ganglion due to it's diagrammatic representation of the aforementioned nerve ending. The rules for the day took more time than usual to explain and the intricacies still seemed to be lost of a few people as they walked out of the briefing. Essentially there were 4 turnpoints within 20km of Shodbon that we were allowed to fly Out and Returns from, before moving onto another of the 4 to try a further OR and so on and so forth.
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| Ganglion 4 points of a quadrilateral |
Conditions were brilliant and I clipped the Leominster start point and whizzed off to Tewksbury at about 128kph admittedly with the help of a 10kts tailwind before turning back to LEO and completing my first OR. I then pushed north west to the next possible starting turnpoint ,Walford, which let me charge off to Worcester and back.
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| Upton apon Severn |
I had noticed that the northly point of WAL was a little tricky both times I approached it and put that down to the effect of the hills just to the north with the northerly wind. Having made it back to WAL I set off towards to Old Radnor, also in the lee of those pesky hills and the third of the 4 set points. I was planning to aim for the Breacons for the next OR and noting the ragged clouds near the TP I was cautiously trying to stay high but having not found any lift that was worth stopping in and not going back, my options rapidly diminished and having pushed on and pushed on I ended up rounding out in a very nice field near Hay on Wye. Even though I had managed 236km I was cursing my decision not to turn back while I had the chance and was subjected to the torture of watching the sky stay soarable for hours.
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| Field with a great view of the epic conditions over the Black Mountains |
Team Eagle meanwhile had nabbed a couple of the 4 turnpoints and even managed to work their way over to the Black Mountains to turn Talgarth where they scored their climb of the day, a solid 6knots up to cloud base. The return to Shobdon proved to be a bit more tricky and the big blue hole that had appeared over the airfield claimed it's second victim. Both NHL gliders in fields in opposite directions from the club, rubbish cell phone coverage and battery power running low, the retrieves were a whole other saga. If you have a hour or so to spare ask Tom about it when you see him at the club.
Wednesday greeted us with a gloomy overcast and we were rather taken aback when the "grid before briefing' message came through, especially as we were having a nice relaxing breakfast in Nick's caravan and the gliders were still in their trailers after yesterdays late evening return. Pretty soon the murk was dissolving and blue sky appeared letting the full strength of the sun get to work in adding energy to the mixing layer. Our optimistic met man had high hopes for the conditions too our east despite the top cover that was already visible racing in from the west and consequently another east west yoyo task was devised to stretch the Enterpriser's abilities. Waiting to launch, we watched the high cloud layer move over the sky like a giant sheet of paper coming in to block out the sun. Early launchers raced off east but even they couldn't out run the thick cirrus and everyone remarked later how cautiously they had to fly. Underneath the alto-stratus the cumulus clouds that had appeared were still working although with less powerful climbs and as the thickness of the top cover varied so too did strength of the available thermals.
JB and Nick were convinced another landout was on the cards so Nick offered up the back seat of BBB so that he would be available to take care of complicated Eagle retrieve logistics and JB cautiously notched up a few of the more local turn-points with an enthused visitor before making a beeline back to Shobdon, where he and Nick later took another launch for some local soaring.
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| Looking east over those pesky hills near Old Radnor |
I too felt that another landout was high on the agenda for the day and decided to go west first as it appeared to be a bit brighter in that direction and was rewarded with a relatively stress free turn at Llandrindod Wells before tip toeing off to the east. My bottle went at Broadway just to the east of Cheltenham and I turned back for Shobdon in a very gloomy sky. A low save over a nice looking field in the otherwise rather gnarly looking terrain west of the Malverns put me on back final glide but not quite finished for the day I spent about 40minutes holding level on a ridge just north of the airfield waiting for one last little boost which would allow me to sneak around Presteigne to nab a few more points and about 250km. There were about 6 land outs today including the day winner Dave "Met Guru" Masson who covered 430km before landing at Gransden Lodge.
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| Zoe in her K6 thermalling with an SHK and a DG1000 |
The beauty of Enterprise is that it's very nature is to test our personal boundaries and we are very often amazed at the results. Our new friend Zoe in her trusty K6 GEF managed an astounding flight turning Old Radnor in the west and Great Malvern in the east pulling off her longest ever final glide and bagging 12 place into the bargain and in so doing beating more than half of the field in their pointy glass ships.
