There comes a point when rhapsodising about the weather becomes pointless, and I guess this weekend has been it, so to speak. After yesterdays blast in Glen Coe, and last weekends romp at Lunan, maybe it’s time to start expecting the met to be generally magnanimous and benevolent, and well disposed to the gliding fraternity, para doo dads included. First of April, time of fools and showers turned out to be a shower of fools doing what comes naturally, fooling around, about and above the hill in glorious sunshine.
Murray, Martin and myself, as well as a couple of others, met up at East Lomond expecting pretty much what we got: light and variable winds, mainly easterly with continually changing quantities of north or south depending on the whim of whatever thermal was going through. Go through they did, very broken, workable yes, I think, but not for me really. I just took off, flew up in vario song (wish I’d had the vario yesterday) to rival the larks, then landed as high as I could after a couple of turns so I could get another go. I did that pretty much all day, until about seven o’ clock, as did Murray, with Martin flying down for his tea (he lives at Falkland, lucky sod, or would be if he didn’t have to spend so much time in China!)
Maybe some cynic out there will say “So, what’s so good about flydowns under a great big inversion?” to which I answer “It was warm, it was continual, it was educational, it was excellent practice, but most of all it was great fun.” The guy in the tiger moth obviously thought so too, as he dived and stall turned just to the south. He came over to say hello, passing a few hundred feet above the top of the hill. I rather cheekily gave him six points for his efforts, and he obviously thought he owed his audience a loop, cos he went out and did one. Excellent fellow.
Murray and I took a turn each at retrieve towards the end of the day, so we could get a decent long downhill flight. I was quite surprised to see five down on the vario, but the sink is quite bad out the front sometimes. After I had picked Murray up in the pickup, we headed back to Dundee. If the rest of the years weekends turn out like this, I for one wont be complaining, but I’ll bet it gets a lot better yet. I’ve been predicting it since last September, and I reckon it’s going to be…..I won’t say it. Fingers crossed though, and this high looks set to stay for a week or so yet, and there’s a cold front due to go through, I think about lunchtime tomorrow. Hee hee. Watch this space for a post cold frontal shower of April fools, coming in, need it be said, for perfect landings.