| Flight details: | The wind was trying to come over the back and after the first flush no further thermals seemed to be running up the hill, just occasional disturbances which were suspiciously more akin to rotor than thermals. Thanks to Vincent's optimism and Dave Nickels consideration, there was a car heading to the bottom landing field so I elected to just lob off on the off-chance of meeting something on the way to the b.l.
Maybe 200m out from the ridge I hooked a nice gentle climb and was quickly joined by practically everyone on the hill except Vincent & Dave. Bimbled north in the company of Carlo until we met an increasingly strong headwind which seemed like a natural time to turn around and head for home, via Worcester Beacon.
Unfortunately our plans were scuppered by the increasing westerly (edit: easterly! It was 2am when I wrote this) component of the wind together with very strong sink in between the cloud streets. The last proper climb took me to a freezing cold base at just below 6000' (~5980') on my vario, but all that height was soon expended in the sink, such that I arrived too low under the last street to make it back up and hence failed to close the flight. Nonetheless, an excellent day's entertainment.
Full marks to Dave for starting driving at 05:00 and, after being sent through the middle of Reading and goodness knows elsewhere as a result of the closure of the M4, finally arriving back in Ringmer at about half one in the morning! |
