| Flight details: | I think I'd describe this as an interesting flight, it was a complete mixture of nice smooth climbs, some real rock'n roll and some very slow zeros and 0.1's. Not to mention a fascinating lift and a history lesson of the Battle of Hasting from a Miss Marple character!
Like many I suppose, I took off in not a lot after spotting a seagull pretending too thermal and it actually worked for once. After this first climb, which seemed to peter out at around 2000 for me I decided to take a look at Newtimber given how west the wind was. Albeit a slow climb out, this worked a treat and I eventually reached base somewhere near the Ditchling road. I could see the other gaggle ahead and slightly north of my track but I stuck with it as the clouds were working and I was happy with that. I did head over their way when I was looking for lift as I could see them climbing and thought a good glide would get in the bottom of their thermal near Barcombe Cross. Although I came in uncomfortably low it worked and took me back to base. By then of course the gaggle had zoomed off so I stuck with my track for a bit. I don't know about everyone else but I seemed to find lots of heavy sink and yet again I found myself searching for lift lower than comfortable.
I spotted a wing (a blue Nova I think) heading towards Uckfield which I thought could provide some thermic activity. I don't know whether that was their plan or not as they landed straight away on a sports field. However, despite my airspace alarm warning me of imminent danger I explored to southern end of an Uckfield housing estate and eventually my vario beeped. For what seemed like ages I eventually managed to climb out and avoid the airspace. I bimbled along like this for a bit, getting a little low at times and then managing to climb out until it finally came to an end somewhere near that well known place of Cackle Street.
Retreiving myself was interesting in itself. I'd walked about 200 yards down whateve |
