| Flight details: | ...and change my name to Harris, because I bombed again.
Paul Hargreaves, Dmitry and I planned a trip out west to take advantage of super-RASP unspoiled by sea breeze. After a heavy night in the pub, Dmitry bailed, but Paul and I turned up at the right hill at the right time -- Milk Hill, in fact, not Rybury itself, although pilots were already on Rybury and one climbed out while we were setting up. I think he flew back to the hill.
A local pilot, Michael Long, was first in the air and quickly finding thermals. I followed him into one, but then as we diverged I kept climbing, pushing out right to take advantage of the more south-facing slope and also to get close to two birds that were either flirting or fighting without going down.
The climb kept taking me gently up, with stronger and weaker bits, to over 3000 feet, although a bit short of cloudbase. Good clouds seemed all around me -- perhaps there were too many of them, as I dithered a bit between them. When it fizzled out I headed off downwind, in big sink, but another climb turned up before too long.
Then trouble arrived: my GPS beeped to warn me of controlled airspace two nautical miles away. With the forecast WSW, I'd prepared to fly ENE with a lot of clear airspace downwind, but my drift had been more like NNE. I set off crosswind, and when I could take a hand off the breaks got out my map. RAF Lyneham; I knew it was closing down soon, but thought it was still active (as it turns out to be -- it's inactive only at weekends so far).
My crosswind glide took me fairly quickly to the ground, by an isolated farmhouse, after I failed to get a low save over a golden wheat field. As I began to pack up, I asked myself: "Why did you fly over that golden wheat field instead of over that dusty brown ploughed field baking in the sun?" I couldn't give myself a valid answer. The beautiful cloud street that soon formed, stretching ENE, didn't cheer me up either.
Thanks to Paul for picking me up -- with t |
