| Flight details: | Despite the sky, not many pilots seemed to be getting near to cloudbase in the morning, so when I got what felt like a steady climb, I followed it over the pub, despite being quite low. I met a couple of pilots coming back the other way; one joined me for a while, but then headed back to launch (I later saw him over the back again, but well below me). The climb was slow -- at one point my averager said 0.1 m/s for quite a while -- and I was expecting to be apologising to some golfers very soon. It stopped at not much over 1500 feet, and rather than go on south to brown fields, I thought I'd better steer clear of Brighton, so headed a bit east. I then expected soon to be apologising to the footballers by the A27/A23 junction, but little bits of lift kept giving me hope -- but taking me south. I was too far south too soon to reach Asda, although with the northerly element to the wind I may have caught some lift off the back of it. I definitely got something off the stadium site, but never got over 2000 feet -- nowhere near base. Then I tried to follow the high ground towards Saltdean -- I even fantasised about connecting with the sea breeze and soaring to Newhaven, but I saw no convergence. As I approached low a field full of horses, and a bridleway with horses being ridden on it, I decided I'd better land before I had to apologise to angry riders. Walked to the road, got a lift after 30 seconds to the Ditchling roundabout, and there met Julio who had a retrieve from Jaime lined up -- thanks, boys!
A very enjoyable flight, though I never found the big climb to base that would have given me more options. Back at the Dyke, the sky looked perfect, and I think another bunch got away in mid-afternoon. |
