After a busy week it looked like there might be a chance of a sneaky wee fly at bridgend after work.
Tommy, Dudley and Rob managed to get to the hill around 4 ish and had a bit of a fly about.
I finished work at 17:30 and headed to the hill with Chris (new to the area) . We got to the bottom about 18:30 and spoke to Rob on the radio. No one was flying at that point but Rob took off and chased some seagulls for 5min then landed.
by the time we had got to the shoulder there were 3 gliders in the air. Tommy was watching us walk up but Rob and Dudley were climbing out and back towards the Tibbie Sheils inn.
Tommy landed and gave us a quick update on the landing options. Land by the river on the hill side as the other fields were full of sheep with lambs..
Rob and Dudley were flying high by this point and heading back to the front of the hill. Boating about in the convergance lift.
Me and Chris took off and got a wee taster flight or two in. The air was a bit strange. Up high it was almost SE, There was a bit of an easterly component at and above hill height then a ENE sea breeze coming down the loch.
The different air was mixing and making it interesting on and just above the hill. Sometimes you were on the lifting side of the hill then the air changed and 5sec later it was sinky but the other side of the hill was lifting.
The trick seemed be to stick with it... get high and then it smoothed out (400ft up or there abouts according to Rob) I almost managed it I think but didn't quite get up high enough. It was probably the highest I've been over the hill so wasn't two bothered.
Spotted Stephen heading up and Dudley back from his loch crossing so landed, did a bit of ground handling and caught up on what was happening.
More short flights then spotted everyone was in the air. 6 people. That's almost half the club by current numbers!
Stephen flew to the NE side of the hill and then slowly flew down and landed near to Rob and Dudley. chris was boating about out front at this point. I was on the ESE face. It got kind of snotty for me Then spotted Tommy diving along the hill. He then got a climb and got up into the convergance... wandered over the pub and boated round for a bit.
The snotty air was the encouragement I needed to head down and land. A very nice evening flight and a bit more than I was expecting :-)
Chris landed not long after. Tommy was still in the upper atmosphere and instead of landing by the megget water decided to try for the Gordons Arms. half speed bar to penetrate forward and he cleared the NE end of the loch.
A wee chat in the pub for me, Chris and Stephen and then home in the dark.
More evening flying like this please...
Jamie
Gallery
.png "stephen on landing aproach (ignoring the river...)")
