| Flight details: | Spending a day up on the Downs in what was the hottest one of the year was fantastic... if slightly exhausting..
The tug was slightly down on power and I had a slight tailwind on launch meaning I was in the trolly for a lot longer than I am used to and when I released then had to pull in low before normal service resumed and we were off. I had a nice smooth launch however but am mindful that I was lucky not to be hit by any bad air while I was slow and vulnerable.
Once delivered to 2000ft I noticed a sailplane cruze past and went for his cloud, it worked a little but not convincingly which is when I saw Dave Matthews in what looked like a better climb downwind from me so I took off to find him, he had had exactly the same thought.
Not knowing that I then made the assumption that he was off somewhere interesting so I followed him, while doing so I spread out so we were flying different air and judged my glider against his which was interesting. I also picked out a target cloud upwind from the aerotow field towards Kingston.
Dave at this point turned back, I made a choice not to follow as I was now out of range of the field and committed to my cloud so I kept on to test my choice.
It gave me only zeros, which was great but not great enough to distract me from my predicament, very few of the fields below me were nice to land on the one I liked the best was downwind and behind some HT power lines, this distraction and the very slow drift I had in the zeros was not a great situation, I was worried when I should have beed concentrating on the lift I had.
In the end I was not happy enough to decide to commit to the field and overfly the powerlines when I had plenty of height making a safe upslope landing without a crop and with plenty of space.
Slightly hard work to carry out however especially in that heat, but I was happy with having tried and with sticking with my choices rather than play follow my leader and learn nothing.
However those who flew |
