| Flight details: | Conditions became such that I couldn't launch the students so I thought I'd give it a try. I launched in a WSW and just managed to climb to maybe 10m above launch, on which I made a death glide to Newtimber. Topping up a couple of times on the way I just scraped in, arriving below the treetops, but welcomed by a diffuse climb.
Was joined by Luke on the hang glider a few minutes later and he showed me the buzzard circling to the north of the hill. I was reluctant to join him at first as I didn't want to risk being pushed into the venturi there and bombing. Nut after a few minutes it became apparent that it was a solid climb so I flew over to join him.
We climbed slowly to the base of the sea breeze front and then up the side a few hundred feet. The views were spectacular with Luke's black hanglider showing against the clouds below. There were also sheets of low level scud coating much of Hove and Brighton.
The sbf was curving inland from about Offham and I could see that we would be undercut if we were unable to push inland. Unfortunately the next cloud street inland looked to be in the 2500' airspace and firstly i didn't think I'd reach it but secondly I didn't fancy having to stay stay that low. The net result was that I stayed with the sbf, with Luke pulling away steadily.
After a while the front lost definition so I pushed east to a more likely looking section of convergence. I arrived at about 250' but nonetheless picked up a snotty patch of lifting air. Thank you mr. Kite. I bimbled along for a km or so with this, climbing very slowly until I realised that I was about to go low over the bird sanctuary at Bentley, at which juncture I decided that discretion was appropriate and glided away to land.
I was kindly collected by Robbie and went straight to Airworks to continue the day's teaching with some theory and exams, picking up the car later. This delay meant that I missed out on Vincent's distribution of alms, in the form of his superb bread, |
