| Flight details: | Was feeling a bit unmotivated the night before but Boris motivated me to make the trip to Milk/Rybury for the first time. Thanks for that and for driving!
The night before I hastily put a couple of waypoints in my Kobo to try and get through the gap between Benson and Brize. Only arrived around midday then spent a while faffing around trying to decide between Milk and Rybury. In the end we went for Rybury as people seemed to be climbing better from there. While setting up a bit gaggle got away from Milk, so maybe not the best decision!
Great sky but it was very gusty, Westerly, with very little lift when we got to the top, but we set up anyway. I was keen to get in the air to dispel XC day nerves, and launched a bit before Boris, straight into a good thermal which took me up a few hundred feet, super lucky! From here the climb was quite broken, and I had to keep re-centering every few turns to stay in lift. Half-way to Milk I watched a seagull and buzzard circle in a core next to me, climbing well, for probably three of four turns before I eventually got the message and moved to the clearly much better lift.
This climb got me to 750m where I think there was a bit of an inversion, as I got stuck at this altitude a few times. Drifting over the back of Milk at about 750m I lost the lift and went on a little glide, before stumbling on some 0s or -0.5s. I felt very low, and for the next 10 or 15 minutes worked really hard to stay in these zeros, thinking the lift might improve when I drifted over the first village behind Milk (Stanton St Bernard?). Eventually, either through patience or just stumbling on some better lift that had been there all along, the climb got stronger, and with a bit of work I got past the 750m inversion and up to base, or at least as close to base as I felt comfortable going considering the 45 degree rule.
From here I felt I could relax and take stock a bit. To my right was all shade, and a crossing of a big cloud with a dark base I t |
