| Flight details: | will complete later, trying to sort download first!
I was late, so a slow start. Hung about for a little bit waiting to see if anyone would come with me, but quickly lost most people around Newtimber.
It was nice to have the extra 1000' north of the Dyke. That definitely makes for a less stressful first part of the flight. Initially ran along the line of thermals coming off the top of the Ditchling ridge but struck out northwards soon after Ditchling. Great views in the clear air. I could clearly see the Thames Estuary and the South Coast simultaneously, by using the eye in the back of my head for the pedants out there :)
Met up with a couple of gliders over Ringmer, then joined from the south by a couple of hang gliders, a topless and a class 5, who stuck with me for a while before the topless headed into the shade and the class 5 disappeared into the distance.
The main feature of the flight was the cold. I was only dressed for summer and it most certainly wasn't summer up there!
A couple of times I had to spiral back down then proceed with bar & bunny ears to stay out of airspace as the cloud suck improved.
By weir wood the cloudbase was over 5500' and the strongest climbs were peaking at something like 7m/s.
It was looking like it should be easy, so I ran down the side of the 3500' line bleeding off height until at Hawkhurst I encountered a strange linear thermal, sort of like a convergence front, but aligned at 90 degrees to the sea breeze, which remained visible miles to the south. On turning into wind here groundspeed fell and it became quite disturbed, so I opted to bail out downwind to the large French style mansion at the top of a small slope. Unfortunately there was nothing but sink there and I landed beside the walled garden.
Moments after I landed a very stong gust of wind blew from the N/NE for a few minutes. I was certainly glad not to have been landing in that! |
