| Flight details: | After an hour or two of scratching, interspersed with some reasonable climbs, I noticed that I was on the ground while several other pilots were nowhere near it, so I thought I'd better give it another go. Took off, found it nice and lifty, started going round and round in a thermal out front a bit. The drift was slow, and taking me along the ridge, rather than behind it. Nice. Saw Tefal way out front and low, and thought of going to pimp off him, as I suspected he'd soon be climbing (I was right). But I decided to stay with my weak climb, which never took me over 2000 feet. A gaggle of about four were going up near base, also out front, but I didn't think I'd make it over to join them. So along the ridge I went, expecting a nice walk back on the top of the Downs. Eventually I started sinking, and set up for a landing on the east face of the last spur of the ridge. But that face was into the wind, and nice and sunny, so the landing didn't happen; I went up and back just steeply enough not to have to worry about rotor behind the spur.
Back in the game; I thought of landing at Crispin and Grita's to beg a cup of tea, but the landfill beckoned, and gave me a bit of lift. The diggers working in black earth beyond it looked promising. They gave me what felt like it might be a proper climb, but I quickly lost it, and decided to push on westwards in the slight hope that the flatlands over the river would give me a climb that would let me reach Swanborough.
But hang on a minute: I'm pointing downwind, so why am I only doing 11 kph? And why has it suddenly got cold? Ah -- all those trips to Worcestershire and Wiltshire have made me forget that Sussex is on the coast. And 500 feet over the Ouse valley at noon on a sunny June day is the perfect time and place to be reminded of it. Fortunately, I had just enough sense, and height, to fly back to the right side of the river before landing.
Time for that walk back over the Downs (good training for next month's X-Sussex) |
