Mayobridge and a bottled top landing

I had already booked today off work so I could potentially go flying. After the kids were packed off to school I went through my weather checking ritual and the two sites that seem to have possibles where either Magilligan or Mayobridge. Mayobridge was showing slightly lighter winds so I favoured that. I heard that someone was heading to Magilligan and after trying (and failing) to talk Bertie into letting me give him a lift for once if he was heading out (he wasn't) I heard that a few club members were heading to Mayobridge.

When I arrived there were three pilots on the hill, one ground handling and two getting ready. I watched the fun as the three pilots launched and at times they were getting height but soon lost it again. After a while they all came in to land as they were struggling to stay up.

I got myself ready, mentally made my flight plan which was to launch, try to soar for a bit, then try a slope landing, falling back to landing on a large flat field that wasn't far to the north of the ridge if the slope landing didn't seem right or I lost height. By the time I had done this and waited for a small lull in the wind I had gained a bit of an audience. Helpfully Colin checked that I had made a flight plan which I rattled off quickly to prove that at I had one.

Facing the glider I crouched slightly and stepped back and pushed back on the harness while guiding the wing above my head checking everything had inflated properly, turned while (mostly) keeping pressure on the wing and ran launching into the air (a perfect reverse launch by my standards). I quickly sat back in the harness and turned to soar the ridge and to my surprise and delight I seemed to be gaining height. I even remember sitting back a little to use the back rest on the harness to try to relax a bit. It was fairly apparent that I was gaining height because the other pilots were seen scattering to ready their wings to make the most of the lift I was enjoying.

Me with my "L plate" red ribbon wrapped around something as usual.

After several beats back and forth on the ridge the lift seemed to be waning as did my height. As I was so pleased with the flight so far and worried about suddenly loosing height I aimed for the large flat field to the North. I flew probably about two thirds of the way across the field and turned into wind with loads of height to spare before turning into wind. With the use of my controls I was able to make a more or less vertical decent to my landing spot, which ended in a gentle landing and fortunately in no way required me to remember to "take a wrap" (it wouldn't have helped anyway).

So on reflection I probably should have gone for a top landing early on in my flight when I had enough height but I was enjoying the soaring. By the time I realised I was losing height I am sure a more experienced pilot could have slope or maybe even top landed, I was happy just to take the easy option with a big grin. There will always be the next flight.

As it happened there wasn't another flight today, by the time I packed away my wing, stepped over a barbed wire fence, climbed back up the hill and cooled down the conditions seemed to be getting too strong. The last pilot to land had been up a while and gained rather a lot of height and by the time it he came into land conditions were a bit rough, fortunately he had the skills to land easily in such conditions.

Next time I may remember to take pictures or even break out the sunglasses with built in video camera I brought especially for flying.