| Flight details: | After an hour and a bit of soaring, a gaggle got highish, and a couple kept going, though most came back to the hill. After my next take-off I got a decent climb with Dave Swanton on his new Mentor 2. It didn't take us very high, and he sensibly headed back to the hill, but to quote Yeats:
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The ridge to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the ridge behind
In balance with this doomed attempt
To get away and go XC.
So I kept going, at less than 1500 feet, even though another two sensible pilots (Owen and a pale blue Advance?) flew above me on their way back to the ridge from even further over the back. I maintained height over the golf course, but the sinking ground beyond sucked down the air, and me with it. I flew over a big house with a swimming pool, but I've not had much luck lately landing by those. Then I saw it: the next house had a large trampoline in its garden. What if I positioned myself 200 feet above it, full-stalled, bounced up and reopened my glider just as I arrived over the next thermal trigger?
No, I landed in a field by Wellingham Lane. I apologise for entering this pathetic excuse for a flight into the league, but, as the Cowdenbeath centre-half said after clattering my Uncle Albie when he was playing one of his few games up front for Stenhousemuir: "Sorry, son, but we need the points."
Over tea in the landing field later, I was rather embarrassed to find that my habit of writing up my little flights has misled some new club members into thinking that I'm some sort of cross-country guru. Longer-standing members will know that my XCs are both infrequent and short compared to those of our real experts (Tefal got to Barcombe today, didn't think the day was promising, so turned and flew back to Ringmer, where he stayed in the air for some time before landing where he knew he could get a lift). If anyone learns anything from |
