| Flight details: | I saw the forecast was for light NE going light S and thought, well you won't know if you don't try... On arrival at Bo Peep at about 11am (after having to do some work) all were on the deck, bar Ghandi who was approaching cloudbase out the front.
I rigged quickly, washed last night's cow dung off the wing then launched into a forlorn hope glide. I was pleased to find a gentle climb, in which I was joined by nine or so others.
I started out by aiming to catch Ghandi and achieved this at about overhead of the reservoir. He headed off along the cloud street running coastwise. After a short while I decided that the more northerly running street to tour left looked much more appealing so dived across to it.
I was able to cruise NE under the street, only having to stop to wind up a little more height a couple of times. Base rose to over 3500 as Heathfield approached, but the sky quickly deteriorated into shallow 'pancake' cumulus with significant distances between the clouds.
Once the cloud streeting had stopped I was no longer able to penetrate into the apparent 7-10 mph headwind, though fires on the ground were showing winds from practically every direction except the south. I strongly suspect that this street, although not the closest to the coast, was caused by some converging air as there appeared to be a NW wind to the west and an E wind to the E.
After dropping to about 2000' I gave in to my inner nag and turned back, following the edge of a cloud street east only to fail to connect with any lift. I was down to about 700' before I picked up a small thermal from a bonfire, but succeeded only in thermalling downwards and landed in Rushlake Green.
Retrieval was a joy; I walked about half a mile before I was picked up by a fellow pilot (sorry, the name escapes me) who went out of his was to drive me all the way back to Bo Peep. Many thanks to that man!
The Thames may have to wait for another day, but my Gin Boomerang really is cheating, so I see |
