Mountbenger 20111230
forecast:
a fair bit westerly first thing but progressing round to the south and picking up by around midday.from rasp - looks like the further east the better as things are strengthening from the west bringing with it some rain.
Left the house at 08:45 to drive up to mountbenger. some rain in the pass between moffat and st marys loch but dry still when I arrived at the site.
Rob Beattie was already there and walking up. He headed to the top and checked the windspeed. pretty top end.
we walked further down then decided to fly down. Rob went first - first flight on his new glider and harness.
I followed straight after. quite lifty and a wee bit of light rain. had an interesting landing. had to run off the flare. that's what happens when your a wee tad out of practice!!!
nice 5min
Tinto 20111227
forecast was for the wind to pick up during the day so I headed out to the hill a bit earlier than usual.
made it to site for 09:30
no one at tinto so headed up the hill and turned on my spot gps tracker.
wind was a bit off to the east but speed was ok.
had a couple of little soaring flights then soared down the hill and landed in the field next to the car.
it was a tad muddy!
nice to get in the air. 6 weeks between flights is not good!
Witchyknowe 20111112
was flyable. sort off.
got to take off - dudley and tommy were parked up on top when me and neil arrived.
wind felt pretty strong but laminar - so started to unpack things. Rob turned up followed by Dave. Quite busy for a wingbeat site!
by the time things were unpacked the wind had dropped at the southerly take off - so we all kited up to the se'ly and higher take off.
pretty strong and off to the hill - some soaring was had but lift band was small
as the wind was off - we all flew down to the sw'ly bowl. no wind over there! so nullwind launch back towards the cars.
brief but enjoyable afternoon out.
neil gave me a lift home - the ettrick - lockerbie road in an bmw m3 hirecar - I think that left me feeling more shaken than any flying incidents I've seen or experienced! neil - if you read this - I'll drive next time ;-)
jamie
WitchyKnowe - 20110904
got to the hill just after 11 to find Tim, Logan (and luke), Tommy, Dudley and David T at the site.
slightly west of south but logan had a first go - found it quite "interesting"
DT took off - up and down then went off to the South western bowl - climbed out quite quickly and made it to soutra
the rest of us hummed and hawed - then duddly headed off. me and logan attempted to fly to the bowl. tommy and tim walked.
got a bit of flying in. not quite sure how long - was good to get the wing above my head. a bit thermic and gusty at times. kind of fun too.
some small wingovers and a fly down finished the day off.
Haas hill - 1st july 2011
40min walk to the top of the hill. light breeze coming up the face. took off - not quite soarable so flew down. packed up and 20min walk home. nice way to end the week.
thats 40 min walk from the house not from the car :-) and I'm sure I can find a shorter route...
Abigton West - 28 June 2011
I actually flew... woo hoo
http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?X=294085&Y=624570&A=Y&Z=120 shows the hill - pg know it as abington west - os map says "white hill"
broughton is a tad to far for me for an evening boat about - so when joe carty suggested abington west I thought I'd take a look.
a chap called mark on a ozone mantra was soaring the hill when I got there - i think he made it over the river at one point (not sure about as far as the services) so I headed up the hill and launched (prob 7ish)
boated about for an hour - getting hight and loosing height and a bit of playing around with some rather poor wingovers.
joe turned up (he'd tried tinto but did a t2b in rotor!) had a bit of a soar - then he suggested trying to get to crawford. (no idea why) so we headed in that direction. after an hour of pretty smooth soaring - it felt a tad bumpy and rough heading south along the ridge of hills.
made it as far as the aerial near castle hill but either was to far into the nw bowl or it was rough but didn't like it! so headed down to land.
joe headed back towards take off and made a good stab at it but also found things a bit rough low down.
it was a different trip to the one at the end of the summer last year as I passed over the abingdon services and crawford at (or near) cloudbase that time round. this time - scratching along the ridge :-)
1.5hr evening flying. pretty happy.
the house was all locked up and everyone asleep when I made it home...
jamie
Tinto - 8th feb 2011
Tinto - New Years Day 2011
first day of the year and I got a flight in at tinto.
a few people made it out to the hill. not as cold as last time but due to the house reorganisation I had forgotten my balaclava so was a tad uncomfortable :-(
25min ish in the air. pretty strong conditions. headed down to land when forward speed started averaging 5km or so (I'm asuming that was forward!)
have now flown 3 out of last 4 new years days :-)