| Flight details: | After a 10pm call from Matt Pepper, I and 5 other members of the club went to Combe Gibbet for the day. A 5:30 start after what seemed like 1 hour's sleep didn't presage too well, and when we arrived, the cloud spread out all over the sky wasn't too welcoming either. However, a quick flight revealed very good lift, even without any sun, and with the forecast for the front to move through., all looked good, epic even. As it turned out, once the front had passed over, it was, er, just sunny. Local whizz, Adrian Thomas, announced that we had some wave effects, which seejed right. Still, at about 2pm, we announced 'time to go' and mounted our respective steeds. The first decent thermal had the entire field in a gaggle, turning left. Being a true Southerner, I headed off to find my own thermal that I could turn right in. I got it, but the pack pounced on me, and demanded I turn left, the b****ds. That put me off enough that I fell out of it and landed after 5K. A brisk walk back to the hill, and conditions had worsened - strong winds, choppy thermals.
Around 5pm, I tried flying again, and got into a nice 5-up, which had me leaving the hill for a second time. That got me to 2,500ft, where an inversion stopped all further progress. I bimbled about at this height, spending all the time hunting for the core, whcih was wandering all over the place. Eventually, I gave up on it, and headed across wid for some likely looking sources. A buzzard below me lied about his lift, and had me scrabbling for lift over a set of electricity pylons, scraping over them by about 30 feet, and a rough landing to the first PLF I've done in 15 years. Ouch!
After walking to the nearest road, I was sitting down under tha shade of a tree, when someone driving a van and trailer stopped, and asked me if I was OK. Having established that I was trying to work out where I was, he offered me a lift to the nearest town. But no room in front, so I had to travel in the back of the van. Having no window |
