| Flight details: | A cast of thousands of Southern slackers -- well, more than a dozen -- assembled at Pandy for the BBC. No, hang on, that was my past life -- it was the BCC this time. After slacking on take-off on Saturday morning, we went and slacked at a barbecue at Alistair Andrews's parents' house in the afternoon, before doing some more slacking at the campsite in the evening. We carried on slacking on launch on Sunday morning, but then the wind dropped and we had to fly.
It was tricky at first, with the wind breaking up the thermals, though every now and then one or two PGs went over the back. I baled out of my first climb, as I didn't want to drop low into the valley behind the ridge (see James's post for an account of why that's no fun). But a while later a bunch of us got something a bit better. With the BCC scoring open distance only, the security of the ridge had to be abandoned, so we followed the climb up and back, coalescing into a mini-gaggle of me, John Turczak on his Mentor 2 (a cheery shout established his identity), a green Nevada, and a blue Sigma, piloted by Andy Hasler of the SE Wales club, as I found out later.
Once it fizzled out at not much over 3000 feet, we headed off for Sugar Loaf. It worked reasonably well, with Andy and the Nevada getting up from low to join John and me. The four of us helped each other to eke out the less than booming lift over Crickhowell. When it turned to zero and then less than zero, I set off for the moors above Llangattock, while John went more towards the valley. We both got climbs, and John came to join Andy and me over the moorland. The Nevada disappeared about this time. We briefly caught up with an Omega that had been way above us and ahead of us at Sugar Loaf, but he soon outclimbed us again.
Then it was a scrape over the high ground, wondering if I'd make it off -- and if it would be wise to make it off. I decided that the end of the moor was not quite abrupt enough to produce horrible rotor, although it was roug |
