perh16840 The Malvern hang-gliding club

The Malvern Hang Gliding Club Feb 2003 http://malvern-hang.org.uk

February Meeting

In the Robin Hood, just south of Castlemorton Common on the Gloucester Road.

Piedrahita Trip 30/8/03-6/9/03 now has nine on board, including the Brians, Rob D and Chris Smith. Contact Bryan Hindle if you are interested.

Easter Fly-in, Scotland Aerotow Field

18th - 21st April get as much flying as possible.

A race round a course, starting and ending at the airfield, for hang-gliders, rigids, and hopefully sailplanes and paragliders

Free flying, dual flying, demo gliders, hopefully paraglider winching, FLPA, microlighting.......

The usual bar-b-q, camping on the field etc etc

Tell all your friends.........

Club Trip to Barmouth

Feb 1st/2nd 2003.

Sing this all together!!!!!!!!

There’s only one effin Fairbourne,

One effin Fairbourne,

There’s only one effin Fairbourne.

This is what you would have been singing, if you had gone to the Club Barmouth weekend.

Hey, and if you take the ‘F’ out of Fairbourne you get airbourne!!!!!!!!

I had Friday off to do something else, but it got cancelled so Diane and I got to Fairbourne fairly early on Friday , after a beautiful drive through sunny, snow covered mid Wales. Rigged on the hill, but sat there in lovely sunshine all day with absolutely no wind.

Checked in at The Crown in Barmouth early evening and met Derek Evans in town. Derek informed us he was camping!!!!! Trying out his tiny new ½ man lightweight tent/shower cap. He had found a small grassy plateau directly above the town and that was where he was going to live for the weekend. Craig Townsend arrived in the middle of our fantastic curry meal in the neighbouring curry house. Nick Collins then arrived and a very pleasant evening was had by all. Derek in deep dicussion with the owner of The Crown on the subject of ‘one man/woman tents I have owned’. Derek then proceeded to negotiate a fantastic full English breakfast for £3.00 for the following morning!!!!!!

Chris Smith arrived at breakfast time, the next morning and got in on the breakfast deal!!!!

Incredibly the wind was on for Fairbourne, so off we all went to take off.

15mph NW perfect. Chris was first off on the PG, with us stiffie and rigid pilot frantically trying to get rigged asap, since a westerly was forecast later. Chris now looks high and Derek is off and soon gets very high. Craig gets off, soon followed by Nick on his rigid Stratos and me. Meanwhile Chris had toplanded reporting 500ft ATO and conditions a little strong for floppies. However, conditions were perfect for stiffies and rigids. We hit cloudbase at about 2000ft, then had to go forward and above cloudbase on to 2500ft and beyond. I could see Nick and Derek further south down the coast and over the sea. They kept disappearing into cloud. Then I completely lost Nick. It turns out he went about eight miles down the coast, still in lift. I had no idea where Nick was now, and even thought he had somehow gone XC over the back, through the cloud! I now see that Craig had toplanded successfully, and found Derek enjoying himself, looking at his own aurora!!!

I decided to give Barmouth a go and try and cross the wide estruary. I got there with 800ft ATO, and could have easily landed on Barmouth beach, near to ‘The Crown’. I am now getting very cold. Chin and left thumb frozen. Should have put my silk balaclava on and not left it in the harness pocket, and should have put my hands in the bar mitts a lot earlier. I now fly back over to Fairbourne, play around for a while and top land in super smooth air. Indeed, all the time we have been flying, we have had super smooth conditions. In my 27 years of flying hang gliders, I cannot remember smoother conditions.

I talk to Craig and he had had a good flight. I can now see Nick out over Barmouth. Derek now top lands, with a huge smile on his face (I think he was thinking of his little tent!!!!) Nick comes in under perfect control about ten minutes later. We all talk about our fantastic flights in winter on a coastal site. I think Nick had been to about 2900ft. We now think we could have managed to get on to the ridge above Barmouth and on up onto the higher hills/mountains to the north. The Cader run to the east was not on, because of cloud.

Nick now tells us that he feels more of a passenger on his new wing, than a pilot of it. I don’t think that he and his glider are one, yet!

Anyway, we have all had great flying, in the middle of winter in Wales and return to Barmouth to more, yes more, curry(it is worth the drive out here, if only for the curry house, next to The Crown) and beer, red wine, beer, those coloured shot drinks with names like, ‘orgasm’, ‘sex on the beach’, ‘blow job’, etc. Make more friends:- a drunken construction worker from Burnley who had been in Barmouth jail the night before!!! Derek refuses to dance with Diane(I think he was dreaming of his little tent, again)

Sunday turns out to be blown out, but we start investigating other take off points above Barmouth. We have a pleasant lunch time drink at The George’ in Penmaenpool (End of the toll bridge up the estuary) and make our way back home.

JB and barograph

Flying Reports

Saturday 25^th Jan. Ken Shail took Peter Wood, Chris Smith and me down to soar Rhossili in his Twin Commanchi, Romeo Oscar. The cloud was well broken and there was a fairly brisk westerly. We met up at Staverton’s little Terminal building where Ken filed a flight plan with one of those rum-looking individuals who always seem to run airfields, and then drove us round to his James Bond style hangar. When you press a button the fifty foot wide-door folds in half vertically. Cool. Romeo Oscar’s a big plane, with tip tanks, filling the hangar. It has a serious look about it. We pulled it out onto the tarmac, one on each prop, and Ken with a special handle on the nose-wheel. After taxiing round to fuel up, we found we had a bit of a wait as every one was off out for a Saturday jolly. Once topped up, Ken flushed a little avgas onto the apron to check for water in the fuel. The engines fired up straight away despite being warm, and Ken turned right onto the runway to trundle back up to the perimeter fence to give us plenty of room. He advised us that the two most useless things in powered flight are the runway behind you and the sky above you. The take-off was smooth, the westerly runway sloping gradually in the flat Severn valley with the hills of the Forest of Dean dead ahead. Ken banked right immediately after take-off to avoid Churchdown. The noise in the four seater cockpit wasn’t bad, and we all had headsets, so we could listen in to the considerable radio traffic. The array of instrumentation is fairly daunting, and there is constant jabber on the radio, but Ken handed over to Peter once we were climbing out heading for Swansea, with minimal concern. Apparently a major piss-up is in order when Ken clocks his thousandth hour in the next few months. Peter was very confident (!) and we stuck at about 3500’ feet just below cloudbase flying under Visual Flight Rules. I did think that they stipulated being 1000’ clear of cloud, but the rules seem to be no firmer than the clouds themselves – they are not solid white lines in the sky. Peter dolphined us along through the bottom of the clouds, past the Blorenge, and then above the high ground behind, there was a beautiful moment of silent consternation as we flew into solid cloud. We all shut up simultaneously, though Ken maintained he wasn’t bothered as he could still see the ground. Once out, Ken told Peter to dive through a closing gap in the clouds ahead, as all this time we were under radar control and there was plenty of traffic about. We flew over Llanwern’s massive steelworks into Swansea Bay, over the Mumbles as we tried to pick out Swansea airport. It’s as difficult to spot from the air as from the ground, on the way out to the Gower. Control told Ken to use the north/south runway, despite there being a beautiful runway heading straight into the moderate westerly. The ground drops away from the north end of the runway, and isn’t too even out to the west, so we were being thrown about handsomely as we descended in, Ken having to put in fairly major inputs to keep us level in the buffeting cross-wind. At 50’ or so, he’d had enough and put the power on and we climbed away smoothly to go around. The Twin Com has a reassuring reserve of power. Ken asks about the into-wind runway. No, it’s out of action. Around we go again, its exciting but we touch down smoothly. You know those days when you’re top-landing and the wind’s twenty-five to thirty, and you’re coming in getting chucked around, thinking, ‘Either I’ll get down OK or I’ll get dumped and do an upright or worse, but it’s 50:50 either way’? It seemed like that to me. Fine if you’re on your own on a hang glider, it concentrates the mind. But with three passengers, at eighty knots? That’s some responsibility. After a cup of tea and a roll, we took off to ‘operate’ in the Worm’s Head area. This was Ken putting on some flap, and stooging up and down Rhossili Down and 110 knots, trying to ridge soar above Alan and the rest who had top-landed for lunch. Back off the Gower, Ken handed over to me, and I had to eat my words after taking the piss out of Peter and his inability to maintain altitude. Ken stayed patient as I meandered our way slightly drunkenly back towards Gloucestershire, at various altitudes other than, but adjacent to 3000’. I tried a 360 in the rotor off the Blorenge, and ended up 500’ higher. Flying accurately on instruments must take a LOT of practice. Thanks to Ken. It was a blast.

John Bevan was there …The Club' flew 'the Shrine' Sat Jan 25th in strong conditions.

Mick has his first flight on his new Lammy, and text messages start flying from his mobile!!!

Nick flies it and declares it 'The best flexwing I have ever flown' (but he has not flown a Combat 2 (13metre) yet!!!!)

Derek has his dual Typhoon there and takes youngest son Mark for a spin.

Alan 'comes out' and informs all, that he has ordered a Moyes Litespeed 3, and gets an immediate CUDDLE off Nick!!!!!!!!!!!

When will this madness ever end!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Roll on Barmouth next weekend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sunday 8^th Feb. John Bevan and others flew at Rhossili in the PCF North Westerly.

Campaign against an attack on Iraqi People

If you feel strongly about this, join the march in London next Saturday. Buses leaving from Tewkesbury and Cheltenham. Contact me on 01242 706076 or 07764 291288 if you want me to reserve you a ticket. Gordon Allison.