| Flight details: | A beautiful sunny autumnal day at Caburn. One after the other, we appeared on top of the hill, all rather late in the morning. Carlo took off and climbed out immediately with Mark W, and off he went. I thought the rest of us had probably missed ‘it', and flew about for half an hour. I landed, noticed that the wind had picked up slightly and took off again. I quickly got a nice climb at the end of the ridge, which took me over the back a bit, so I decided to push forward to get a better climb. Glancing over my shoulder however, I noticed Catherine low over the back connecting with the same thermal, which took her up rapidly. I changed my mind, turned around and joined her. It worked! Together we climbed out and left the hill. We found another good climb near Ringmer which took us all the way up again. Catherine then left and went off on a glide. I decided to stay with the thermal a little longer and it paid off.
Passing and glancing at Van Hoogstraten's £41m home, I noticed two sailplanes thermalling near Uckfield and had enough height to join them. Then I began to worry about airspace. The climbs continuously drifted me north. Just before Heathfield, where the 2,500ft airspace gets very close to the boundery with the 4,500/5,500ft, the air was still buoyant, but I decided not to engage another thermal in case of drifting into airspace. I didn't have enough height to safely cross Heathfield and landed at the edge of the town at the Community Sports Centre.
Soon after, the Flybubble bus was on its way, having picked up Carlo first, then Tefal, filling up, collecting strays along the way. Thank you so much Nancy for driving us back, despite your painful shoulder! |
