What with Co-vid and then a run of pretty poor flying weather since lockdown eased, there haven’t been many promising days and so I was quite excited when Tuesday the 21st showed up a few days before as fairly hopeful.
The forecasts came and went, and the consensus seemed to be worsening the closer it got.
However, the RASP check in the morning was better than Monday’s prognosis, so I toddled down to Dungavel, picking that over Broughton as the wind strength in the morning seemed to be a bit high for comfort on the bigger hill. I arrived to find Stephen P and Al T already there, so after a short faff while I tried to remember what bits to take, we walked up. Wind strength was fine and cycles were coming through, so we set up. Stephen sampled the air twice, briefly, and then we launched pretty much together in the next cycle. We caught a steady climb almost immediately, so I had no time to test the gear tweaking I’d done over the non-flying days; we were off! This was the first time I’d thermalled properly with my new Gin Explorer, and it behaved very well. At just under 3,900 feet and close to base I decided I’d just go. We’d discussed retrieve options beforehand, but even if we hadn’t I think I’d have taken the chance!
I assumed that since this thermal had been so kind, that was setting the tone for the day, so all I had to do was run to the next cloud and repeat. Didn’t work for cloud No 1, nor for cloud No 2. Oops! I was now torn between heading for the next again cloud, or running for the hills to the south. I opted for the cloud again, which was wrong and probably stupid in light of the lack of lift under the previous two. Realising my error somewhat belatedly, I made for the hills near Coulter , where I connected with something low down and gained a few hundred feet, but made the next error of not sticking with it, but doubling back in search of better lift- which was no longer there. And that was that, really, a glide out over a couple of cropped fields still in the sun as a last ditch attempt to get up again, but it was not to be.
Nothing epic but so nice to climb out and go again. The new wing is good, I am definitely rusty! I was pleased to be close enough to make out Ian K’s wing laid out on Broughton Heights.
A trek into Biggar for the bus to Lamington, and Stephen P was kind enough to save me the bulk of the Lamington to Dungavel walk. It felt like the start of the season, not well through it; strange times indeed.
From what Al T and Stephen said it seems that what I got was the sunbeam of the day. No other climb came close to taking anyone up and away, so today it was my turn to get lucky. I can live with that!
Alistair Bowman