During the week, the weekend was looking like it would be flyable.
As Saturday dawned it looked borderline for flying but that was OK as I couldn't get out!
Sunday (Mothers day) was not looking that brilliant a day for flying. Quite a lot of wind forecast but bridgend might have been OK.
Tommy has been gibbering about the dunes south of Berwick for some time so a plan was quickly formed to head in that direction and check them out.
It's the other side of the country to Lockerbie so a bit of a trek.
Headed up to Ettrick (picking Chris up along the way) then we headed to Newton St Boswels to meet up with Gerald and Rob.
Rob's wife had obviously disagreed with him going flying on mothers day as she hid the car keys in the cat fluff underneath a dresser. So he made his own way over after skinning the cat and cleaning the kitchen.
We got to the coast. Lightish breeze was not what we were hoping for but it was the right direction.
10min walk down the beach got us to the nice bit of the dunes.
Tommy was first up on top checking things out. I followed him up then Chris was up and about. Gerald watched from the bottom.
Then a flash of fluorescent fabric made an appearance... the legendary Xyon.
and it flew! up and down. not so high. sometimes low. Tommy seemed to have the knack of turning in the very small lift band.
I had my tandem passenger harness + Mac Par Velvia. Not played with this combination before. Launching as ever was simple but tuning in lift was a struggle with the split leg harness.
Several mini flights later I was almost getting the hang of it!
Kiting the glider up the face of the dune was nice and straight forward. The velvia is soooooo easy to ground handle.
I wish I could say it was my skills but I think it was the glider.
Chris did really well on his rush with impress 3 pod. I think he may well be using sand for (much needed) ballast for the months to come!
Gerald got some good ground handling practice in after extracting the glider from his chosen launch point!
Rob... made it along and was hugely excited to fly the Edel Rainbow that Tommy had looked out from his archive.
Nothing like flying a 1993 glider to get the blood pumping. And it flew! Looked weird. almost like it was set up backwards but he did not to badly on it. It seemed to turn quite well compared to my glider.
One of the locals - Derek Mills also turned up. He'd never flown the dunes before and was almost enjoying the experience.
There was a fair bit of scratching, crashing and playing about. Exactly what the dunes are for. great fun.
I think everyone got a good bit of ground handling practice in which is really good for this time of year.
Not sure I've done quite so much exercise this year. So was shattered by the time I got home.
I'd like to say I'll be back but we'll see. It's a rather long way from Lockerbie!
Hopefully during the summer. With the family and maybe the glider. The beach was fantastic.
Jamie
Pictures
