Bob Matthews, Graham Tydeman, Johni & myself headed off to Burger Van hill (Known correctly as Creag Each). Must admit there were conflicting website weather forecasts as to which direction the met wind was Bob believing it was NW and myself feeling it was more to the North.
As it turned out the wind was cross the normal take off so we all launched from a Knoll just off to the North. Two main flight plans were discussed with Bob taking the lead. 1) Head towards Bishops, 2) Head directly south and connect with Gargunnoch hills. 3) stirling was another option.
It was at the start a bit of a struggle, as again I found myself in lumpy conditions. Graham had already gone over the back and Bob was doing what Bob does best is maximize the conditions and float about.
Well I felt that I had made a mistake that nearly put me back down on take off as went south out of the lift band, quickly re-gaining my senses I went around to the North of the hill and promptly landed (out with the thermic cycle). This happened another couple of times with Bob landing too, afterwards we both latched into a half decent thermal and started climbing out then it disappeared so I pushed forward and top landed on the rim of the north slope with Bob playing about in zeros over the forested valley below. It wasn’t long before I re-launched into a good thermal this time with Bob joining me, we both succeeded in climbing out over Glen Ogle.
Bob left the lift early on an exploratory glide loosing too much and coming back into the lee of the hill to climb again whilst I was sitting at least a 1,000 ft above him. The next time he went on a glide I went with him crossing Loch Earn at the head, connecting with the slopes of Ben Vorlich on the other side. Bob was probably just above hill top height and needed a top up so whilst he was doing that I kept going along the spur of Ben Vorlich that runs above & along the loch to the end.
After loosing a lot of height I was now looking for a thermal and at the same time noticed that Bob had jumped the next valley onto the small ridgeline behind. (named on map as forest of Glenartney) “B**ger” I thought I’m in the wrong spot. Perservered for ten minutes until I got enough height to clear the spur and glide over now well below Bob, start soaring/thermalling back up to join him on top. Bob then took another glide towards St Fillans searching for lift but loosing height all the way, and ended up on the deck. Meantime whilst watching Bob’s progress I’ve latched into another thermal and get above Ben Halton and take my last glide to just East of Comrie. Again I was thinking of the next climb went over the village and got a kicking in very mixed air and decided eventually after 5 minutes that I had enough of that nonsense and landed close the river Earn. Afterwards I realized that we had gone for flight plan 1.
Graham had the best of the day having gone southeast and reached Blackford just north of the Ochils!
track:
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download for viewing in google earth: 20150608-sean-burgervan.kml
