| Flight details: | In case it's of any interest here's a quick report of the first round of the BPCup in the Yorkshire Dales.
The forecast wasn't good, with strong winds expected for the whole comp. It was a 4 day event; from Thurday to Sunday. I arrived early evening on the Wednesday, to clear skies but strong winds. I took my tipi but left my wood-burning stove behind for some daft reason, so I froze my nuts off at night. The campsite had Weather Fell on one side and Stags Fell on the other, so all very pretty.
The briefing was Thursday 9am but it was very breezy. So, a rebrief was called for 11:30, followed by another one at 2pm, when a task was called for Brants Side, a local smallish but thermic hill (apparently). During the postponements, we had sessions on using your GPS and competition tips, plus a mentoring session where whoever volunteered got hooked up with an experienced flyer. I was assigned to Pat Dower, who is a top bloke (as was everyone). All of which to say, there's more to it than just competition flying.
We headed off to Brants (I wasn't optimistic), but sure enough it wasn't howling. We arrived at 3:40pm, had the task set at 3:50pm, with the start set for 4pm i.e. quickly to makes the most of it. The task was a 40km flight to goal (no turnpoints), heading downwind (ENE direction). Figuring it out later, I realised it was a case of getting high, heading to Stags Fell, then jump over the top to the Swane Dale valley along to goal near Richmond (via a couple of climbs on the way). There were a couple of active firing ranges (i.e. tanks firing shells!) north and south of goal, so I was thinking I really do need to figure out a way of tracking air space in flight!
The wind was top-end for me, so I was a little unsure whether I'd fly but watched as the first few people lobbed off. There wasn't much forward speed but it looked okay and not bumpy. I waited a bit longer as a gaggle grew and the wind had some nice lulls. NB I had a a bit of a scare a year ago a |
