Report by John Bevan

Regards, John.

After a long lay-off, Sunday was one of those days that remind me why I like flying so much, and why I still make the effort of trying to go cross-country. It had been howling on Saturday, although the visibility was excellent for an easterly. Sunday morning was still windy, with some of that low cloud that you get coming off the North Sea shifting quickly. It soon cleared, and it seemed worth going over to Malvern even if it was only for a walk. Some of the family had come along to take pictures, but after not having flown for more than six months, I wasn't too keen on giving them a nasty accident to take pictures of, and remained on the ground until they had left. Pat Sinclair was soon doing well on his Litespeed 4, and people were getting high over the Beacon and flying well out over Malvern town, so with some assistance I took off from the shoulder in the clean air to the right of the bowl. The wind was howling through every now and then, but was in the low twenties, I would guess.

Some time ago, I decided to go minimalist, and gave away my Lindsay Ruddock vario to Robin Brown and my Flytec Alti-Vario to Damian, a former lodger who was taking up paragliding. Having read an article by Bruce Goldsmith on how he flies with only a GPS and a Renschler Solario Vario, I bought one of the solar-powered varios for a hundred pounds. It is smaller than an empty match-box. And less use. Despite having basked in the sunshine on my window-sill for the previous few months, it stopped squeaking a few minutes into the flight. As it has done on all of my recent flights in the past two years. It's not like Simon Murphy to sell dud equipment so I guess they made this one on Friday afternoon, after a gallon of lunch in the pub.

The fact that my vario was not working is a testament to how well organised the thermals were on Sunday afternoon. You could feel them by the wing lifting and then the surge of acceleration as they lifted you, in smoother, slower air than the general drift. Some people said afterwards that it was bumpy, but I didn't think so, or at least I don't mind bumps when the lift is organised. It did get interesting at times, getting drilled below the level of the Beacon, though it always felt smooth enough to me to get back in close to wait for more lift to come through.

After an hour or so of only getting a few hundred feet over the Beacon every now and then, I wandered back down to take-off to see why nobody was particularly keen to fly. The wind was quite brisk, so I was trying to thermal by making my downwind beats as fast as possible, with slower into-wind legs. The problem really was being reluctant to drift back over a spine-backed ridge like the Malverns. I noticed the black undersurface of Max Sanders's CSX above me climbing, and felt a good surge of lift coming through, in the north-easterly bowl immediately north of take-off. Just by slowing up and pointing into wind, I climbed rapidly, without really 360'ing. Max pulled forward, as I reached the inversion some twelve to fourteen hundred feet above take-off. The brown smudge that marked the inversion had disappeared, and it felt good although I wasn't climbing any more. I was still in easy reach of the front of the ridge, but it's always such a shame to lose all your height clawing back up wind, so I decided to glide downwind, as I was in no hurry to get home. That said, I didn't feel confident about finding another thermal without a vario, or about finding a landing field in the Ledbury valley, so although I didn't seem to lose much height, I hung around the flat fields on the way to Ledbury, rather than gliding for the next obvious thermal trigger, the hill just before the town. Also, if I didn't find anything much over the hill, I would have to glide out over sloping ground, with little clearance, into a strong headwind to reach a flat field. It was very buoyant, so it took me a long time to waste all my height, and also gave me ample opportunity to pick a field that was flattish, not ploughed, and by a road. Despite having all that time to choose, it still had a reasonable slope and I was gliding down to a hedge thinking: "Either I'll hit that hedge or I won't, but I can't say for sure". Fortunately the wind was strong, and I stopped short.

The people who had stopped on the road to look drove away, and Mark rang me from take-off as I was still walking clipped-in back up to the cottage in the corner of the field. I declined his offer to pick me up, as I thought I would easily hitch back. Just then, an old gent, complete with handle-bar moustaches and black beret, came out of the cottage to chat. After passing the time of day, he came back in a while with a cup of tea and a cake while I derigged in the sun. A short while later, he said that he had he had to post a letter, and would I like a lift back to the Kettle Sings? Surely. He fired up his 45 year old wood-framed Morris 1000, and I stowed the glider in his garden. One can see why the car hadn't rusted as the door seemed to be quarter-inch thick metal plate. Noticing that he didn't bother with fastening his seat-belt, I reached for mine anyway, only to see that there weren't any. I guess you don't need them when you don't drive over thirty, in a car made like a tank.

We crawled up Lower Chase Lane, past his favourite pub the little Chase Inn. He said it was very much worth a visit for the real ale and food, so we'll have to make it a venue for a committee meeting. He told me he still worked pressing apples and making cider in Castlemorton, after a career in Air Sea Rescue launches.

I probably flew barely two miles on Sunday, but by making that glide down-wind, I turned an ordinary flight into a memorable one. I'm sure anyone with half a mind to it could have a flown a few miles on Sunday, even with the low inversion, because the lift was good and the drift was strong.