| Flight details: | I planned to fly home to Lewes, dump my glider at home and catch train and bus back to the Dyke to retrieve the car. I thought this would happen after lunch, but having got airborne about 0930, I found the lift more typical of afternoon conditions, so decided to try to get onto the Downs around the Jack and Jill, and if necessary soar to Mount Harry to pick up a bit of height for the final glide into Lewes. It was quite a struggle to crosswind to the windmills and I arrived only a few hundred feet above the ridge, but apart from a bit of turbulence at Ditchling Beacon, all went well as far as the Mount Harry area, where a climb materialised and I was able to glide comfortably into a school playing field/ public park in Landport. Matt York was on the way from Firle to the Dyke and kindly stopped to collect me from the Prison crossroads in Lewes. Back at the Dyke by 1030ish, I thought it would be foolish not to have another flight, especially as conditions looked pretty good in terms of cloudbase (but was that some wave cloud?), and the cover to the east looked fairly extensive. I thought a crosswind route again might work, and determined not to give up and head for the sea until all else failed. Climbing out was not hard, and I joined Phil(Happy Flyer)in a thermal to near base, where he left towards Falmer. I thought I would stay in the lift until I could only just push forward again and eventually got just under airspace on a similar route to the first flight. Another climb took me over Lewes, then a continuous circling exercise between Ringmer and Glyndebourne allowed me to drift ever so slowly eastward without getting blown too far south. I got too close for comfort to Deanland and tried to crab north to avoid it, so ending up low north of Hailsham, but hung on to a weak thermal from 1000 feet and eventually got up over Hailsham and crossed the Pevensey levels to meet the hanging curtains of a very short section of SBF, which allowed me to maintain a gentle climb |
