| Flight details: | After a busy day getting various jobs done, Nancy and I headed out hoping for a bit of evening soaring. We decided the sky was looking pretty overcast, and generally better over Firle than the Dyke, therefore we opted for Firle. We arrived as a few paragliders were soaring around not much above ridge height. It looked a bit windy, but OK so we decided to give it a go.
As I was getting ready I noticed that the clouds around us were starting to look quite interesting (i.e. they appeared to have interesting potential for getting up high if you put yourself in the right places) and also observed that a number of seagulls and swifts were milling around nearby (i.e. within sight). I launched, with a slightly ungainly fencepost-hopping trick along the way, and flew out to join a lone yellow paraglider climbing nicely right in front of launch (why aren't climbs always that easy?).
As I climbed in the thermal it became apparent that, although it was going up OK (average 1-1.5 m/s), there was a lot of drift in it and it would not be beneficial to let yourself drift over the back as you would quickly pass the point of no return. Also, I noticed that some interesting cumulus-convergence-wave clouds were forming upwind, towards Beddingham hill (where the antennas are).
So, I tracked upwind making slow - but very buoyant - headway. The key here was taking the right track so as to stay in the lifty air; thermalling would not have worked as well as I felt that it was triggering regularly upwind (probably due to light wave influence) and circling would just have drifted me away from the convergence-wave area. Watching the birds and the clouds, I managed to do a careful tight-rope walk along the narrow lift lines, slowly but steadily going up all the way. I also benefitted greatly very helpful model glider, whom I have a sneaking suspicion was knowingly showing me the way; I've noticed many times that he thermals very, very well that guy!
I arrived over the east spur a |
