| Flight details: | Really wanted a chance to fly Ditchling Beacon for the 1st time and Saturday was to be the day. Its so close to home and I know the area well from the ground, but I wasn't entirely sure where to takeoff. In the end found the right area and the wind direction (NNW/N) was pretty much bang on if a little light so just sat for a while, not fancying a bottom landing! I was joined by MikeT (flying an Airwave Sport 3) shortly afterwards and he got into the air straight away as the wind picked up whilst I messed around with my gear. Finally, all sorted and with some encouragement from Mike I launched into a brisk northerly wind takin the elevator up.
Spent a while soaring around with what looked to be a Kestrel and was then rejoined by Mike in the air with no less than 3 scarily fast and low flying sailplanes! Was pretty shocked to see them buzzing us but added to the experience I guess! We enjoyed boating around for a while - I was trying to avoid getting pinned by the wind - most of my flying (~30hrs) has been thermic with light winds so this was a good opportunity to practice in ridge lift. Once we grew tired of the main bowl we headed to the other side of the car park and scratched around for a while. Mike seemed to be able to maintain height more easily so need to learn his tricks or get a comparable wing, or both!
Then for a brief moment the sun popped out through a gap in the clouds and all of a sudden some light thermals emerged, but with the wind speed picking up drifted quite a bit. One caught me out (see last 5 mins of flight on the video) and I stupidly turned downwind (vario says 60km/h gs) in a 360 as I hit sink. By the time I had managed to turn back into wind and jump on the bar my slojo and I were pinned and struggling to push forwards enough to get back into the lift band. Ended up with a less than welcome top landing and some lines caught up in a bush! Definitely a lesson learned not to head too far back behind the ridge on a windy(ish) day! The wi |
