| Flight details: | Blue day. Nice lazy XC, sadly cut short by the sea breeze incursion.
After a slow start and the traditional bun-fight at the Dyke, I climbed out as part of a gaggle of about six gliders. After meeting the convergence just behind the Dyke, most of us chose to run down the southern edge of the Ditchling ridge, working various slow climbs to over 4000' until Mount Harry. There Carlo and Greg disappeared off to the south, presumably with their Foot or Fly in mind.
The remaining gliders ran behind Mount Caburn and largely worked the blue SBF to just north of Hastings. Here as we were starting to move further inland, to avoid the Lydd airspace, it became clear from windrows on the lake below that the SBF was pushing in at a shallow angle and threatening to cut us off. Seeing this we turned inland to try to get into the land air. Despite finding a few thermals to drift in, the sea air was undercutting still and eventually I had to look for somewhere civilised to land.
Having run so far inland (I was by now only about ten km south of Headcorn) I had avoided the full force of the sea breeze and had only about 25 kph on landing. That of course didn't stop it being horribly rough at about 100' agl but it smoothed off for the last few feet.
Shortly after I had finished packing, another glider probably Kenny on Mark's Enzo, drifted almost directly over my head at about 300' to land a few km NE having not been in sight for the whole flight! |
