Talgarth 2023 Expedition - Thursday 13 April to Monday 17 April 2023

This year we organised an early-season expedition to the Talgarth, the home of the Black Mountains Gliding Club, in South Wales.

13 pilots took the ASK K21 (R28), the Astir CS (R77), the ASW 19B (HXU), Kestrel’s Discus (R53), Martin Langford and Adrian Lake’s LS6c (335) and Humza Hamid’s Ventus 2cxT (TC).

With poor weather forecast for the first expedition day (the Friday) and, with a promising forecast for the day before, 6 expedition members got up very early on Thursday and drove across to Talgarth to get a ridge day. They all had site familiarisation flights with Martin Langford in Black Mountain’s ASK 13 - the airfield was too soft for our ASK 21. They were all subsequently rewarded with great ridge lift - most of the mountain was working and thermal conditions were present all day. Martin was the last to land at 19:45 after flying in weak wave. The day produced 13 flights, with over 13 hours flown, and the hog of the day was Phil MacKenzie in R77 with 3 hours 45 minutes. All in all, it was well worth the change in plans and everyone enjoyed charging about locally, with some heading over to the Brecon Beacons.

As forecast, Friday was damp, so we went to the Big Pit mining museum, including an underground visit, and enjoyed some tea and cake. The rest of the expedition members also drove across on Friday.

Saturday was our only thermal day. Martin did some more site familiarisation flights in the ASK 13 whilst the others rigged the fleet. Dave and Dan Kearney joined us for the day, flying with Jan Brouwer and Paul Field in R28. We had great conditions, with 20 flights and nearly 34 hours flown - hog of the day was Humza in TC, who did 6 hours and 230km up and down Wales. The others charged about locally or did shorter cross country tasks. Martin landed last at 19:15, after flying around in some very interesting convection.

Sunday was poor weather, so some members climbed the local mountains and, despite the original forecast, so was Monday, so we all drove home.

It was a great trip with great company - lets do it again next year!