| Flight details: | (Milk Hill again, not Rybury itself.)
I was torn between Caburn, Thurnham and Milk Hill, with the forecast worsening for all of them as the day approached. The M25 closure made up my mind for me. Arrived at 10 to see half a dozen in the air, drove up the hill, found the car park full (5 max), dropped my wing off and drove down, walked up, just in time for the rain to start. Cursed my timing, got a lift down, rain stopped, went up with a van full of pilots and gliders and begged a place in the car park.
As Hoppy and I had tea and biscuits, it quickly got very much better. Richard Bungay and another got away quickly but low. It quietened down and most of us sank out. Kiting in light wind, I was three glider maintaining over the bowl to the left, and considered joining them, when a strong thermal lifted me off, half under control. I made the half a whole, and worked the lift. First climb took me over the back low, so gave it up. Then I saw a red/white wing out front climbing fast so headed to join in, much lower. As I looked round before turning, I saw a blue XC3 just behind me; we both got a few rustles as we entered the spicy thermal, but established ourselves fairly soon (what we established, in fact, was that he was going to outclimb me comprehensively!). But even at my pace the climb was a good one, taking me ENE rather than Wednesday's NNE, so no airspace worries.
After the climb, the XC3 outpaced me horizontally too, with the red/white one further ahead. But Marlborough gave me another climb, while the XC3 had to wait. I'd nearly caught up with him when I reached 3700 and decided to bale out of the climb, a little short of base, because the clouds were quite vigorous looking. XC3 man then headed N, heading for both high ground and good clouds; he was confident of making them, but I fatally dithered, and finally decided to keep heading straight downwind. I sank fast, and the next climb was scrappy and hard to work. I lost it without gaining much height, |
