I may not have done the tour de lac, but at least I can now say I have done the tour of Rutland Water. 😁
Finally had a great flight this year, weather and work not been kind to me and flying has been pretty much non existent or at least Xc's that is.
After taken a day off work last Wednesday and didn't get much of a climb from the tow field, I vowed never to do that again in a hurry, a week later, I got talked in to trying again at Rutland this time, bit of juggling and a late night in the office Tuesday and a couple of hours in the morning, Demo wing Swing Libra RS L packed off I went.
Launched with a slight tailwind with two gliders overhead, I found a light slow climb, watching the two above me near near base and a mate on his XL Photon launch behind me, he was climbing a bit better than me, but being low, and in a weak climb I was worried leaving what I had until I got some height. As it happened he ended up joining me where we both climbed to base.
First climb on the wing (tick)
First use of big ears (tick), for a two liner they worked impeccably. Now lests try the glide.
Spitting feathers 4k to nearly the ground I had lost Chris, and being on radio and knowing he was behind me when we left base, I was cursing him as no mention on radio that he had found a climb or a less lifty line and nowhere to be seen. Lack of flying for me seemed quite obvious lack of confidence in finding something to save me, as I did not know where to go no obvious signs to try, I ended up going for a small sloping field upwind of a tractor harvesting, the wing twitching and doing its thing helping direct me in to a thermal, way hay, 400ftish fairly "first" low save, 2nd if you count the launch, it got me up but only to about 1500ft, then Chris reappeared slight higher but between the two of us we were back at base and over Oakham. (unknowingly until our post flight beer and parabollox, he had also got low and was scraping around looking for a low save cursing me as I had a bit more height)
The rest was fairly straight forward head for a cloud, climb, glide, got under a quite big black cloud just north of the the lake, giving the cloud a little respect I stayed to the edge of it, but swiftly moved on as 3 buzzards were diving down from quite some height above me.
And being on a demo wing was quite concerned I would be buying it whether I liked it or not, or at least paying for a repair. Another bird looked high gliding past, being in awe as I'm pretty sure it may have been an Osprey? Certainly wasn't a buzzard or a Kite.
Once back at the tow field it was nice to boat about gliding from cloud to cloud, never found it so easy to stay up I did consider trying to do a 2nd tour of the lake but didn't think I had another 2 hours in me or at least the convenience of landing by the car won over. I decided to stay withing gliding distance of the car, Having no other plan, I decided to land, which wasn't so easy as I normally find it especially when you don't want to.
Great day out Many thanks to the Rutland team, I know the effort that's put in to help others fly.
And thanks to V12 for the demo wing it was certainly an enjoyable and thorough test.