| Flight details: | Up the hill early to catch the sea breeze, along with 20 others, mostly with the same idea. It arrived, but no-one had got anywhere. After a while, though, various people started drifting over the back, Carlo in the lead, well ahead of the pack, with a few others drifting to Ringmer afterwards. I decided that it wasn't really happening (as did Tefal, who, after going off with Carlo staggered back to the landing field, only just penetrating forwards). I decided to get off the hill before it blew out, so started off towards the landing, when a decent thermal hit me half way across. Might as well turn in this, I thought, and off I went, off to the west, climbing in a thermal that hoiked me up half of the way around, and dumped me the other half. Maybe not, I thought, then, what the hell, see if it lasts. It did, to Glyndebourne, where the usual weak thermal arrived, and helped a bit. Then I lost it, and thought bad thoughts about landing after a heroic 3K, but no, some kind person had lit a fire somewhere, and that gave me another lifty bit. Concentrating like crazy to stay in the zero, I drifted towards the gliding club, which is usually a pretty good thermal generator. It wasn't big, but it was there, and this got me far enough to drift to to beyond the end of the Broyle, before turning into zeros again. Losing about 300 feet in the process, I slowly drifted across the country, begging for just one thermal that went better than 0.1 up. finally, going over a hollow surrounded by trees, I heard the vario beeping all the way around, and 1.6 on the averager. The best thermal of the day went to a 4-up eventually, and guaranteed a decent flight. Hanging on in, I finally squeaked past the 2,000 feet mark, drifting towards the 2500 Alt airspace. I never got near 2,500, so no worries there, and finally had to land on the only bit of safe ground available for approx 20K. Not too bad for a top-to-bottom. Kevie-Wevie than earned himself lots of brownie points by retrieving me an |
