| Flight details: | Wow! Turned out to be a good day with a number of firsts. To start with though, parawaiting. A couple of aborted launches, slope landings and sweaty walk ups. Then after Carlo and Mark W, joined by Nancy, climbed out, Matt B and Rob S marked the beginnings of a climb over the bomb out field. Commitment time!! Off I went and just managed to claw onto the coat tails of the climb and was rewarded by joining the gaggle of 6. Then, magical moments! Climbing up the SBF to dance around, above and occasionally in the SBF clouds and the clouds forming above. A very slow start though. It took 45 mins before the task I had set (to Ashford, thinking that was a compromise between just about realistic ambition and the fantasy of Canterbury or even Margate) was activated by flying out of the 400m cylinder, but then a joyous flight along the SBF to Lewes.
At Lewes we were joined by an Artik 4 (who are you?)which had taken a lower line East in front of the Downs and so the gaggle of 6 became 7 (at least after Matt rejoined us after his daisy picking diversion near Glynde/Ringmer). We then proceeded to Heathfield with Mark and Carlo marking climbs and general effective gaggle behavior. Mark especially was playing the scout - heading off, climbing away, coming back, spiraling down to rejoin us lesser mortals. Thank you Sir!
At Heathfield, I started to drop away from the gaggle. I was paranoid about the 2,500ft airspace very nearby and didn't max out the climbs. This happened again near Bewl Water where I left more of a margin to the 3,500ft airspace than was strictly necessary. Net result - I'm now a climb and a glide behind Rob who in turn was a bit behind the Mark, Carlo and Nancy trio. But there were climbs aplenty to be had and I meandered solo across the countryside in the general direction of Ashford taking in the views: Thames Estuary, Essex Coast, Dungeness, Romney Marsh, Folkestone - almost the whole of Kent in fact.
By now my stamina issues were starting to manifest |
