Got away on first tow.... Well scrabbled for ages at the end of the field, eventually pushing upwind to climb to a heady 2000ft with Charles Norwood. It just wasn't working; in a blue hole with high cirrus blocking out the sun; pushed into wind again to sit on a tree lined ridge overlooking the Winchcombe valley for 15 minutes, working weak thermals coming up the shallow slope in the light NNW wind, twice thinking I was going to end up in the trees... I finally got a climb out. This let me glide to sun and better clouds beyond Winchcombe; a weak low save developed into a 7up climb to base and the day opened up. After an hour of flying, a big flight was finally on.... The wind had already backed to WSW as forecast so I ran into wind to the west as far as I could following dark bases under a milky sky with a surprisingly good lift towards Tewkesbury where the sky became completely overcast. I had planned to run back down my original cloud line but looking east the whole area towards XClent had become overdeveloped and spread out. Plan B was to fly a big triangle in the better air to the north so I headed over Bredon Hill and climbed to base then glided further north to better CU and sun on the ground over Evesham. Here, I could have followed a great line of cloud running NE-SW but I decided that this would have taken me too far downwind to get back easily. I made a plan to try to get back to XClent but with cloud base at 4000ft but tops up to 8000, I would have to take cloud climbs to make transitions. I climbed 2000ft into cloud and made a long glide under 5km of spread out to better CU to the SE. The glider got very wet with water running down the lines and the C and D's vibrating in the airflow. I have experienced the same phenomenon flying tandems in cloud; Safe but not very comfortable. I was very aware that with a wet wing, the stall speed was much higher and it did feel like I was flying very under weight for a while. The cloud climb paid off and I was able to connect with better air and a good climb with a sailplane to base on the Cotswold Edge. As soon as I saw him go off on glide, I took another 2500ft climb and started to fight back towards XClent. Luckily the sky ahead had eventually started to recycle, and, with the reduced headwind above cloud base, I managed to punch back into wind. I took another climb to 6000ft before connecting with a great line of energy back to the field, arriving with 2000ft. An amazing 1km wide cloud street stretched to the south so I extended the flight with a fast 8km upwind out and return, zig zagging west to keep out of cloud (had enough of cloud flying for one day and getting cold! ) and a (not as simple as expected) glide back to the field to land by the car. The day looked amazing for the next 2 hours with high based towering CU and light winds. The best triangle I have flown in the UK and probably one of the most varied and technical flights ever.

Flying gliders non-VFR/cloud flying (where airspace permits) is legal in the UK (for the time being) but should only be practiced by experienced pilots abiding by the relevant Rules of the Air and BGA guideline. Cloud flying seldom confers much advantage as the glider performance is massively degraded when it gets wet (reduced glide angle and 'sloppy' handling), it is very easy to get the 'leans' and become disorientated and in IMC you can't pick a good line for the subsequent glide. The only time it is of benefit is where you have isolated clouds with a large vertical extent and you need to get near the top of convection to reach the next thermal.