Height at Mayobridge

Today is probably the only day I'll be able to fly out of the 4 flyable days we are set to get in a row. Fortunately for other members of the UHPC saturday and sunday are looking good for the UHPC Open which is a friendly competition for those that are at least club pilot with 10 plus hours of flying.

Today seemed that the only people flying were heading to Mayobridge. This is quite a forgiving site and one I have flown before a couple of times so I thought I would tag along. When I arrived at the site I could see other cars parked up and gliders laid out on the north ridge that you can see from the car park.My heart sank because that part of the hill has been pointed out to me that you can fly it but you wouldn't choose to come to this site when there is a north wind.

I changed into what passes as my flying gear and started walking over to the laid out gliders only to see that a pilot was heading my way with his gear all packed up. I asked him if he was packing up for the day, but he was just moving around to the NW side of the hill which was more familiar with. I quickly grabbed the rest of my gear and walked with him. While chatting away to him, it turns out that his was Tony whose blog I follow.

The wind was gusting up to 20 mph (my ideal is a smooth 13-14 mph). After a bit of waiting around the wind died down and I watched as Tony take off, soar about then lose his height in a passing lull and land in a field at the bottom of the hill.

I was up next and planned a bit of soaring then a top landing if I get enough height. I got the wing up and after a bit of a wobble of the left a bit I was up, got a few turns in but no real height, thought about a slope landing then bottled out to the soft boggy area out towards the north.

Quick pack up and climb up. Stuffed a sandwich down my neck then up for another flight. This time I concentrated on turning using minimum input on the controls and a lot of weight shift which seemed to help with the height. Before I knew it I had a stack of height but was enjoying myself and really throwing myself into weight shifting.

At some point the wind picked up a bit and made the turns at each end of the ridge quite bumpy. This I wasn't so sure about so I thought I would move further out from the ridge where the lift would be weaker. This lost me height nicely and made things a good bit less bumpy. I then tried to come in for a top landing but missed, so ended up in my favourite boggy field with a nice soft landing.

With the failed top landing in mind I think I will have to explore the lower end of the speed range on my glider to see if I can confidently get my speed down when I am landing. This exploration will have to occur a few feet from the ground though as I do not need to come a cropper to far from the ground.