A great advantage of receiving emails on your phone is that you can respond very quickly to the forecast updates and offers of back seat ridge flights, this allowed a flight with Trevor “The maestro” Stuart on the east facing South Wales hills. An eventful aerotow from Nympsfield meant we arrived very low on the first hill, unforgivingly the east facing side that was obliged to work didn’t play ball, as we scraped around to the North face, field picked and about to fire the iron thermal, we entered lift. There was a lot more North in the wind than forecast, once we had climbed up here it was onto the main ridges up to Hay Bluff.
The hills worked going North reliably and allowed for a fairly uneventful trip, we ventured south of Abergavenny but with the North wind component made it difficult to get all the way to Cwmbran, this wind however did allow Trevor to show me the mountains down the Usk valley towards the Brecon Beacons. It all gets a lot more interesting here with faces pointing in different directions and landable fields far and few between, rewarded with stunning views, definitely reassuring to be flying with someone who knows what they are doing.
We then climbed in a bowl just to the South of Abergavenny, through the cloud on instruments and into wave. Amazingly when you have nearly 60:1 a 50km final glide home into a 25kt headwind from 5000’ isn’t much of an issue! Many thanks to Trevor Stuart and the team at Nympsfield for the launch and fantastic hospitality.
Day 2
A similar forecast to the previous day gave the opportunity to fly some of the hills I’d flown with Trevor, I’d always prefer to land at the same place I’d launched so without an engine I decided to tow 611 to Talgarth in the morning, with the benefit of hindsight I’d likely have got back to Nympsfield given the spectacular wave.
After a check flight I launched, Talgarth lived up to its reputation of character building aerotows, but as we passed through 1000’ it started to smooth out, I released at 2000’ @ straight into wave. It was a completely blue day but the wave was easily to utilise as it lined up parallel to the ridge directly over the club, the first time I’d seen the vario off the clock in the UK. I climbed easily up to the base of the airway at FL95 and hung around to eat my lunch and take in the views.
After an hour or so in the wave, as sublimely smooth as it was, it just wasn’t ridge running! The lure was too much so I decided to airbrake down to the Pandy run. I ran the ridge up and down form Hay Bluff to Pandy. Not as adventurous as the day before, it always seems a little bit more daunting doing it on your own for the first time, but fantastic fun none the less and a good opportunity to give the negative 2 flap setting a good exercising.
The brief for getting back to Talgarth from Haybluff was to get at least 1300’, above site, and take a wide track back to avoid the lee of the Black Mountains. As it turned out whilst climbing at Hay Bluff the wave lined exactly with the hill, I transitioned straight from the ridge into wave up to 5000’, this took me back to Talgarth to connect with the strong wave back up to the airway.
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| Pen Y Fan (Matthew Williamson) |
Before landing I decided to use the excess height to venture into the Brecon Beacons and a turn over Pen Y Fan, there was wave everywhere that I went and I expect some fantastic wave XC’s would have been possible. Once again South Wales offers fantastic flying with awe inspiring scenery and only a couple of hours from North Hill. Thanks to the guys at Talgarth, I hope to see you again soon!
- Matthew Williamson
