| Flight details: | Top cover turned to nice cumulus which quickly turned into spreadout cumulus. The wind was minimal, the thermic lift even minimaler. Simon Twiss and Steve Newcombe sneaked into a climb over the trees, and got away. The rest of us thought we'd missed the bus, even when the wind picked up a little, allowing a bunch of us to soar.
A weak climb took me over the back. Might as well stick with it, I thought, even if it means a kilometre or two to walk back, as nothing much else is going on. But it felt good - and below me I saw Simon Headford and Tim Guilford circling. If they have faith in it, so should I, I decided. And we were right; it was a slow climb, but it kept on going, and I ended up at over 5,600 feet - the highest I've been in Britain. Tim, having outclimbed me, was even higher.
Tim then headed back north, and after a few more turns below me, Simon did the same. Having set at goal 37k from launch on the edge of Southampton airspace, I decided to keep going, as the wind was no longer close to zero.
Andover, which would have been on the way to my goal, was in shade, so I headed for some sunlit fields to the west. They worked, a bit, but I was going the wrong way for my goal, and decided to head east, with the remote possibility of reaching Sussex. But the wind was so close to north that I got close to forbidden territory. When my instrument announced that the wind had switched from NNW to NNE, I changed my mind and decided to have another go at my goal, but with little sun and the day fading, I came down at Crawley cricket ground (no, not that Crawley).
As I packed I wasn't looking forward to the attempt to get back to the Gibbet, but a charming young woman and a small boy walked towards me, asked some sensible questions and then offered me a lift to Winchester station. One change at Reading, and Steve Newcombe, having landed further west and eventually taken a taxi from Andover station back to the hill, kindly picked me up at Hungerford.
After ex |
