| Flight details: | I arrived at the Dyke and rigged, I got invoved helping Martin Brady tweek the sail on his rigid and asked Stevie Cook to give it a test flight, all was fine and both had some quality airtime. By then ther sky was very crowded with paragliders. The red flag was put out to give the hangies a half hour window which enabled me to launch safely. I eventually climbed out and got to base about 4'300 asl and glided to Ditchling where I got my second climb, just upwind of the training slope. I headed off towards Cooksbridge with Fran on her way to retrieve me. I got another climb upwind of Lewes and could see another cloud forming upwind of Ringmer gliding club. This was good news as it would give me a good track to keep me inland and prevent me getting pinned in at the coast. unfortunately that was the last reachable cloud on that track so I had to head for Battle to stay with the clouds. This I did and glided towards Hastings where I started to get low, I found a broken thermal (as most of them were)and got up on the outskirts of Hastings I topped up to base there (just under 5'000) and glided inland for the last cloud that looked sort of ok. It wasn't much good so I left and went off into the blue. Between Hasings and Rye I found a week broken thermal that kept me aloft for a few km and gained me an extra few hundred feet. I could see a cloud over Rye but I knew I would be low when I got there but had no choice but to glide. I crossed Rye with about 700', the cloud was beyond and still out of reach, I got weak broken thermals over the ploughed fields that drifted me close to the wind farm so I glided to the main road to land safely. Fran was at Rye waiting so she was with me within minutes. I derigged and we had a picnic in the corner of the field in the last of the aternoon sun. Life is good on days like that.
Johnny |
