Broughton 10th March 2014

An interesting day at broughton. The forecast last week was for an epic looking day today.

Lots of discussion about XC flights and where to go on the group. Bodesbeck looked ideal based on rasp but the logistics of it (moffat - selkirk road closed for repair till the start of april) put us off.

The plan then was to head to Broughton. I stopped briefly at broughton village on the way and there was a nice breeze in sort of the right direction.

Met up with Tommy, Rob and some LLSC bod's and we headed up the hill.

Sean appeared later than planned having had some issues with his car :-(

Very light met wind with light thermals kicking through.  Tommy was first off. with the masses following close behind. The hill went into shade and everything died for a while. Most landed but Rob seamed to forget how to land... and just kept floating about on the Carerra. Winding most of the pilots on the hill up ever so slightly and doing his best to promote the GIN brand!

Thermals appeared every so often (hint: fly where the sun is on the ground makes things easier) so I got a wee flight but landed quite quickly. More ground handling (some good. some not so good) untill things seamed to be coming through quite nicely. headed back along the ridge. not sure how long I stayed up for but had 3 or 4 for wee flights. some thermaling. some scratching. some ground skimming intermixed with some dodgy ground handling. Even got above Rob at one point (he must have been tired or something) but unfortunatly the camera wasn't on at that point.

It was quite disapointing.. his wing didn't look very dirty from where I was ;-) I guess I wasn't high enough up!

Things appeared to die down a bit so the plan was to fly down to the farm. Sean lead off. Then Tommy and myself. Rob hang back to test his custom mod of xcsoar.

Tommy got a bubble of lift so landed after me. It was a bit weird. We were on the other side of the hill to where we took off and there was a steady uphill breeze.

Rob took advantage of this and looked to be heading off on an XC but then eventually the exhaustion must have set in and he decided to land. It looks a blo*dy good glider.

Some on the hill were a bit frustrated with the conditions. No one seemed to get up and away but I had a grand day out. Lots of playing about with the glider and even some flying! Did my confidence a lot of good. Fingers crossed it won't be too long before I get out to play again.

Jamie

Pictures

video.

http://www.youtube.com/PopuuI7aH0A