Easter Friday. no work. and it looked sort of flyable in a high pressure light wind kind of way. work has been a tad busy and due to other commitments over the weekend I was not weather watching as much as I have in the past.
An email came round suggesting Tinto about lunch time might be worth. this meant I could take Finlay (3) to Taekwando (active start) in the morning and still hopefully fly. A quick glance at the forecast and actuals showed that it was high pressure. and possibly going from south to west so a nice big south face like Tinto would probably do nicely.
Arrived at the hill about 1.15. Dudley, Tommy and Tim were up on the top. thermals coming through but quite bullet like (about what I expected) so I headed up the hill.
saw tommy take off and then sky out so walked a bit quicker up the hill.
Tim took off and went up. I wasn't able to run but If I had the energy I probably would have. Tim must have spotted that I had the camera out as he seemed to be getting closer and closer but I wasn't getting much higher up the hill. I heard a Wayhaaaaay and then he landed a wee bit below me.
Got to the top to see Dudley take off and do a couple of beats then land. he didn't venture to far out from the hill to save the walk back up.
Got my kit out and as expected everything died back. Tim appeared and ate a massive bag of pork scratchings.. who needs energy bars when you've got pork bits. no hairy ones or nipples in packet.
the wind turbines to the south were now facing westerly. Doh. too much faffing and I'd missed it however wafts were coming up the front at times. and from the east, west and possibly north. The air looked snotty too going by some of the wingtips that were popping in and out..
a plan was hatched to fly down then take a look at dungavel. Tommy trying to fly there. the rest of us flying down to cars.
10min of null wind had me set up for a forward launch then I saw Tim's glider twitch.. so reverse launched as the thermal came through and i was up and off. not a huge amount happening in the air but the plan was a flydown anyway. Tim and Tommy got off about the same time then 4 or 5 others followed.
Tommy made it half way to dungavel and by the time I got packed up and had swapped to the dungavel he had got a lift to the hill and was kiting up. then soaring up. so started to head across.
Conditions went down hill the further up the hill we got. quite literally at times as there seemed to be a northerly element to the wind rather than the expected westerly. some ground handling up and down the slope (wing parallel to slope rather than the more normal perpendicular!) then a fly down.
a good practice afternoon. ground handling mainly but feet did get off the ground.
jamie
.jpg "tim 3 (getting lower)")
