| Flight details: | As I hadn't been doing any X/C flying since our son was born, I was a bit rusty but decided to have a go. Ozzie and I were the only two hangliders at Bo Peep but there were plenty of P/Gs. Ozzie had climbed out whilst I was still rigging and I had one quick flight in a very brief cycle which just got me high enough to top land. I was chatting to Dave Massie when I felt another cycle coming through, so I took off again and circled to the east of the chalk bowl, gaining a bit of height, then off to the east bowl for a couple of climbs to 2000' and pulled forwards then glided to the trig. point to connect with a good core to 3800' as I drifted over the back. I was climbing with a P/G who seemed to be taking pictures, until I left him for a stronger core upwind. A glide over Beddingham meant I was down to 2000' as I started to cross the Ouse valley but, half way across, I could see a buzzard climbing just east of the Kingston ridge. I headed towards the buzzard and was banked up to start circling right before I'd even felt the lift. As I was taking a 4-up climb to 3400' I saw Paul Harvey coming straight at me from the east and thought he was going to join me in the thermal. As he got closer he turned left and made a landing approach to the top of Swanborough (where he had a bit of a heavy landing, by all accounts). I set off on a glide westwards and was very low when I got to Bevendean. The sea-breeze was meandering a bit and I managed to climb another 300' in bits-and-pieces which just gave me the height to cross the Lewes Rd. and land, with a slight sea-breeze tailwind, next to Hollingbury Golf Course. Ten minutes later the wind was NE again, for a while. I probably should have headed more north to avoid the sea-breeze coming up the Lewes Rd. valley, but my arms were tired and Trev. Ackroyd (our former chairman) lives just over the road from there. I phoned Trev. and he came and picked me and the glider up and set off to drive me back to Bo Peep, but his car broke dow |
