I arranged to meet Colin heading up from the South with the intention of flying in the lakes. It was tricky forecast though, starting of NE and going round through S to SW. None of them ideal.
I spoke to Steve at the sick and the wrong, who confirmed this. His comments on the Carerra were interesting. He was having lots of collapses and found the glider a bit hard to understand. It dose not fly itself, that's for sure and you have to be really listening to it, but whether that is good or bad in the bigger picture, I am not sure yet.
With that forecast we decided to head on up the road. Colin was keen to have a look at the Beeftub, but it looked along wrong to me. What little met wind there was, was from the west, which I could not really see helping an already fairly complex site. There were a couple of gliders there when we arrived (Graham and someone have met, and know his name, but it has gone), and Charlie and Steve rolled up at the same time which convinced Colin to fly, which we did.
It was not very pleasant though. Soar-able with nasty rockets occasionally. Given that I did not really want to be there anyway, it was enough to convince me to move on somewhere a bit friendlier and it did not take much to persuade Colin. It had calmed down when we left though to pleasant soaring conditions which the others made the most off. After various discussions on the phone with Dudley and Jamie, I decided on Broughton and the gods smiled on us.
We arrived just as Quentin and Dorita got to the bottom of the hill, and Quentin, being a proper Gent offered us a lift to the top. When we got there, there was a very light Westerly coming thorough in cycles. Me and Colin launched and did a few of the dozen beat, land style deals. On one of these I saw Colin stating to Climb on the far side of the bowl from me so I zipped over into the thermal. I soon overtook him on the climb out and was feeling slightly pleased with myself, only to blow my lead, and he zipped past again.
Bugger, all in I thought, and pushed forward to find a better core, with not much hope as Colin had tried it and sank dramatically shortly before. Again the Gods smiled on me and in no time Colin was a dot a long way down. I seemed be in better air and climbing faster. Probably about 85% luck, 15% not making a twat of it.
When I got the airspace, or at least I stopped climbing at 4000', I had a look at my little machine and it said 3Km NW. Perfect for a Triangle thought I. I pushed up wind to Broughton and found another climb over some field being plowed by a tractor there. It was very weak though and in about 10 minuets I had only gained a few hundred feet.
Mr Pathetic crawled out of the wood work at this point, and rather than completing the triangle, which I think would have been easy as there was plenty of lift, I headed back for the hill. I got a good thermal on the way back, which made it relatively easy. Colin was meanwhile intent on climbing slowly but surely into the flight path of the incoming easy jet flights.
He did not have his radio on, but I think the climbs were not really getting into airspace anyway. We had a little bumble about together, but we had both taken our warm clothes off assuming it was going to be a waste of time so the cold got through after another 15 or 10 min, so we went and landed and met everyone for a pint in the Pub in Broughton. Not epic but in it's own way about as good as it gets. It might not fly itself but the glider covers the ground like something possessed.
