Cheeky top to bottom

Having been away camping at the weekend I got back today to see that the wind might just be on for a flight at Big Collin. I haven't got any flying for over 2 weeks so I emptied the car of camping gear as quickly as I could and off I went.

As I approached Big Collin mountain I was relieved to see that there were cars parked at the bottom of the hill and a couple of gliders laid out further up. As I pulled up I recognised one of the cars as belonging to a local instructor. I sat and watched them for a while and the conditions seemed light enough for me to risk climbing to the top of the hill to check the conditions out in a little more detail. By the time I had got changed and got my gear together the instructor had moved his students further around to the more south west side of the hill which isn't really ideal for this site.

I got to the top and the wind was 9-11 mph, at this point I was more concerned with getting a my feet off the ground than worrying about doing any soaring. I decided that it was worth taking glider out of the bag so got on with my daily checks. Checked the wind again, the instructor and his students were still about so I made my flight plan (turn into wind, don't try too hard to soar 'cos it ain't likely, try to land near car). Pre flight checks, bring wing up... nearly lost it, managed to recover... launch. As I turned into wind my penetration (forward movement) was a lot less than I expected it to be which meant the wind was further around to the south west than it seemed on launch. This would probably have been fine except I haven't flown that far around the hill before and my flight plan included landing near the car (if it was safe of course). So I turned back towards the cars and made quite a good guess at turning into wind and landing just next to the long grass that grows by where the car was parked.

I did consider another flight but I decided that another walk up the hill for another top to bottom was not to be, it was getting late and I was tired from being away. I was happy to have gotten my feet off of the ground to clear any cobwebs.