Avon PG XC news

Sorry for the lack of news updates...

pgxc@avonhgpg.co.uk — 2009-09-23T20:46:37+01:00

Apologies for rather neglecting this site over the last few months - no excuse really apart from laziness! I’ve actually been putting rather more effort into my other blog - flyAszent - and have put a few flight write ups on it. Anyway, the league is in healthy form this year with lots of great flights, and there’s a fine few days to look forward until the end of the weekend I believe with another high pressure building.

Anyway, that’s all for now - good flying, Tim

Triangletastic

pgxc@avonhgpg.co.uk — 2009-03-29T23:27:38+01:00

At the same time as we’re messing around at Talybont young Wayners pulls one out of the bag (no not his reserve) with a storming 35km triangle flight from XCLENT which equals 95km in the league - nice one matey :-)

F'ing cold but worth the pain :-)

pgxc@avonhgpg.co.uk — 2009-03-29T22:35:35+01:00

Just after Al’s excellent briefing

My first proper outing of the year found me at Talybont with the usual suspects (minus Ken, haha!) for a BCC vs. Dover & Folkstone and Thames Valley (I think). The sky was looking epic and the wind just about spot on, so without further ado Alex took off and I followed him shortly afterwards. Ten minutes later I was climbing out and on my way to my first (hopefully of many) xcs of the year. Over the high ground strong lift (4m/s) and equally strong sink was the order of the day with base at 5,300’ asl, but over the cider country flatlands the climbs were more gentle and I never got above 3,500’ (which was well below a slightly lower base). I landed near the village or Hoarwithy (53km with turnpoints) and had a dream retrieve back to Talybont (for once!) - a Malverns PG pilot called Dave Quinn was driving past with his wife, they watched me land, came over then drove me all the way back!!! That has to be worth a pint or three next time I see them - thanks V much Dave & Sarah...

I had hoped to take lots of photos but my hands were like blocks of ice after ten minutes, and my fingers felt like they’d fall off given a sharp tap, so I didn’t even try I’m sorry to say... Next time!

Meanwhile a few others had got away for 15-25km flights (Graham, Rod, Alex), but the wind picked up leaving the rest unable to take off safely. Moral of the story - don’t hang around chatting, you’re here to fly, so take off! Sorry if that sounds blunt, but you’ve got to be in the air to go anywhere!

Anyway, Avon won the day... Hurrah!

A great weekend

pgxc@avonhgpg.co.uk — 2008-06-16T18:22:52+01:00

With some excellent flights from Westbury (Alex 70km), Frocester (Wayne 80km) and Hundred House for the BCC it was an excellent weekend's flying. "What about you?" I hear people ask... well having survived a week's flying in Spain without injury I took my son to the BMX track in Bath on Wednesday and completely wiped out on one of the jumps hurting my shoulder quite badly... doh! So no flying for a couple of weeks methinks!

British Open Pedro Bernardo

pgxc@avonhgpg.co.uk — 2008-06-09T17:58:50+01:00

What a fantastic week - five flyable days, four tasks, three days in goal, and approx 300km flown in 16 hours flying! Not to mention the 50+ grande cervezas :-) Well maybe a slight exaggeration there. Or maybe not...! Photos here

Across the Brecon Beacons...

pgxc@avonhgpg.co.uk — 2008-05-11T17:54:53+01:00

What a day! My first UK XC for almost two years was a wonderful flight across the Beacons from Talybont over Pen-y-Fan, Heol Senni, the Black Mountain and on to past Llandovery - just a shade under 50km. Cloudbase was at 8000' just past Pen-y-Fan - not bad for May!

A blast from the past...

pgxc@avonhgpg.co.uk — 2007-09-15T19:46:43+01:00

Some of you may know my old instructor Dave Ward-Smith, others may know the name. He moved from Swansea to France then to NZ where he's been for a number of years. Anyway, back in October last year he had a really bad accident whilst tandeming (see paraglidingforum thread here). Anyway, he's made an almost complete recovery and a few weeks a go I found out he was making a trip over to the UK. Well, a few phone calls / emails later and a whole bunch of the people I flew with in my early days met up at the cafe at Swansea Airport (where Parapente Wales were based back in the late 80's / early 90's) for breakfast with Dave and our other instructor Rob Stimpson. Dave, Rob, Jamie (as in Jamie & Karen), John Nash, Nick Roberts, Dan Ashworth, Trevor Clapp, Lawrence Ying, (Foreign Office) Phil (+ small baby) and a few others turned up! Very wierd, it was like going back 16 or 17 years!

After much catching up we headed in the traditional convoy to Nant-y-Moel where we were treated to a marvellous days flying - thermals up to 2,200' ato (3,800' asl) and hours of beautiful flying. What a great end to the lovely Indian summer we've had, and what a great way to catch up with old friends... Without a doubt my best days flying in the UK this year! Have a look at some photos here...

The Mere Bash

pgxc@avonhgpg.co.uk — 2007-09-01T19:41:52+01:00

Wow, what a great Bash, the best for a few years I'd say. Lot's of flying on Saturday at Westbury and at Mere, then a superb evening the two two piece acoustic sets, followed by the main event, The Rock Pirates. Called in at the last minute to replace the booked band who had split up three days earlier, these four young (yes young, 17 / 18) put on a fantastic show. The marquee ROCKED! See some phots and listen to one of their tracks here!

First post for a while...

pgxc@avonhgpg.co.uk — 2007-07-12T21:46:39+01:00

Well, I seem to have been a bit out of the loop recently, what with leaving full time employment (which apparently has caused this interminable run of bad weather), going off to Piedrahita for ten days for the British Open (which incidentally had great weather!), and coming back on Sunday and finding that I had to be on the 0708 train to London the next morning! And since then I've spent every working day except one up in London working at Chelsea Football Club in as their part-time Database Manager... Just as well I got a lot of flying in (though not hugely successfully in the comp) during my ten days in Spain because I'm too knackered / busy to think about it at the moment. Flying that is, not anything else you might be thinking :-)

So what's been happening then? Anyone taken off recently? I believe there have been one or two nice days in the last two months! Write and let me know! In the meantime enjoy these pics of Piedrahita...

Tandem flying on the IOW...

pgxc@avonhgpg.co.uk — 2007-06-01T20:21:00+01:00

Well the frustrations of Tuesday's missed opportunity was blown away with some fun flying taking my daughter and some friends up for tandem flights at the Freshwater Whites on the IOW. When the wind dropped we went body-boarding, when it picked up we went flying again... can't be bad!

Emily gets a flight...

...but not for Jo and me...

pgxc@avonhgpg.co.uk — 2007-05-29T23:53:25+01:00

Arrived at Merthyr under a fantastic looking sky at 1130 - too windy. Headed to Focriw - too windy. Spoke to Fi at Frocester, sounded good, so hacked over there enduring the awful traffic on the roadworks outside Aber. Got there at 1430. Guess what, too windy. Fi calls saying she'd had to land at Swindon as her GPS batteries had run out. Later we hear that 100km and 80km flights had also been done from Frocester... Oh bollocks!!!

Looking NW from Merthyr - what a sky!

The day after a bank holiday and the weather's looking good...

pgxc@avonhgpg.co.uk — 2007-05-29T07:56:16+01:00

...for a trip to Merthyr. I've got the day off so more news later. Could this be my first chance of an xc this year?

This weather is crap!

pgxc@avonhgpg.co.uk — 2007-05-16T11:48:20+01:00

By the time Saturday comes it'll be one month exactly since the last flight entered in the league, and this is during what is usually the prime xc season! This has to be a record... Please let June be better! April wasn't a bad month overall, coming third in the table of Aprils since (my) records began, but it wasn't that great for weekend pilots.

Flight entry confusion

pgxc@avonhgpg.co.uk — 2007-04-20T12:05:37+01:00

There's been a bit of confusion recently as to the requirements and minimum distance for entering flights into the Avon league. In a nutshell it's as follows: if you want to submit a flight other than a straightforward open distance flight (ie. no turnpoints) then the minimum distance (before any multiplication factors - ie. three for an FAI triangle) is 15km and you must submit a GPS tracklog. For open distance flights the minimum distance is 5km and there is no requirement to submit a tracklog (though you're welcome to of course).

As to how to submit your tracklog, you need a piece of software called GpsDump which will download your tracklog from your GPS and optimise your flight eeking out the maximum distance. Full details on the pgcomps.org.uk website here.

Salisbury Plain Danger Area local agreement

pgxc@avonhgpg.co.uk — 2007-04-19T16:26:34+01:00

We have recently reached an agreement with the Senior Army Air Operations Officer Salisbury Plain, which allows us to clip the far westernmost part of the danger area. Read the full details here.

The wrong site - part 2...

pgxc@avonhgpg.co.uk — 2007-04-19T14:39:24+01:00

Well at least I'm not the only one to go to the wrong site, at at least no one at Pandy did any xcs apart from short ridge runs. Yesterday the Avon skyvers spent the day on the ground at Leckhampton suffering spreadout and wind shifts, only to discover that the world and their dogs had flown from Combe Gibbet to the coast, some as far as Brighton! Oh well, that makes me feel a bit better :-)

The wrong site...

pgxc@avonhgpg.co.uk — 2007-04-14T14:36:48+01:00

I spent a fun though ultimately frustrating afternoon on the Blorenge on Saturday doing lots of short hops, only to discover that people had been flying pretty much all the time at Pandy... Oh well, you live and learn. Apologies Sam (but I blame Alex myself!)

Previous years added...

pgxc@avonhgpg.co.uk — 2007-04-13T00:57:43+01:00

I've now incorporated the previous years' leagues into the main site - see the "Previous years" page

Westbury danger area

pgxc@avonhgpg.co.uk — 2007-04-12T09:14:49+01:00

Unfortunately Nick's 57km flight from Westbury down to Blandford on 21st March had to be disallowed since he went into the Danger Area whilst trying to skirt around Upton Scudamore. I have since been negotiating with the Army to allow us to cut the corner - more news on this soon.

And the Easter Cup winner is...

pgxc@avonhgpg.co.uk — 2007-04-12T09:11:21+01:00

Andre Odinius with his 48.1km flight from Merthyr on Easter Sunday. It turns out that once turnpoints are taken into account it was slightly further than Chris Harland's 45.8km flight. So well done Andre, nice one!

A cracking Easter!

pgxc@avonhgpg.co.uk — 2007-04-10T08:39:41+01:00

...with at least seven flights of the Easter weekend, the longest entered so far being Chris Harland's 45km flight from Merthyr on Sunday, closely followed by Andre's 44km, also from Merthyr.

Looking good for Easter?

pgxc@avonhgpg.co.uk — 2007-04-05T22:33:22+01:00

Remember those hot summer days of last year? No, well nor do I...! But hopefully spring is here at last and we can look forward to some decent flying and maybe even a few cross country flights over the Easter weekend. But do remember, it’s been a long winter with little flying so please take care on those first few flights and don’t let your frustration at not flying for months tempt you into flying when the conditions are marginal.

New site design

pgxc@avonhgpg.co.uk — 2007-04-05T15:09:10+01:00

I've been playing around with RapidWeaver on the Mac and reckon it's the way ahead! I haven't finished getting all the content together yet, but I'd appreciate your comments on the new look...

Alex gets off the mark...

pgxc@avonhgpg.co.uk — 2007-03-26T15:05:54+01:00

...with a nice 30km flight from Pandy

The first decent day of 2007...

pgxc@avonhgpg.co.uk — 2007-03-21T15:04:16+00:00

Some good flying to be had today by all accounts... Nick Somerville flies from Westbury to south of Blandford - 55km approx, and a PB - nice one!