Flight

I only live 15 minutes from Bo Peep on the South Downs and thankfully it’s one of my favourite sites. It requires a North Easterly wind and generally provides decent thermals before turning East.

It was relatively busy on launch with a number of pilots planning to head West in search of some decent distance as well as enjoying the beauty of the South Downs below. 
I had been dropped off by my wife and told her I intended to fly the short distance home to Seaford around midday! We had been looking after our Granddaughter and were due to drop her back home that afternoon. One good climb out in a decent thermal would give me the altitude to drift home using the North Easterly. What could go wrong!
I launched at 10.20 and soon found some half decent thermals to get above the crowded sky below. 
Three Spitfires passed to our North heading towards Cuckmere Haven. What a fantastic sight and beautiful sound. 
As I flew towards the car park I noticed Hugh Miller preparing to launch his yellow Zeno 2. When Hugh is on the hill you know you’re in the right spot. 
Dave Newns was flying out front on a tandem with Bo and was marking the better lift. 
Myself and a number of others joined him and were soon established in a comfortable thermal that was taking us skybound at a decent rate. I was in the air above one of my favourite sites with some of my best paragliding buddies. Pete (Boomerang) Lacey, Steve Purdie, Marcin Bara, Pete Impey, Olly Sherratt, Owen Latham and Grita all in the air just below Hugh Miller and Mark Watts. What a fantastic feeling. 
It was at this point I got literally carried away with the moment and my potential paragliding adventure overtook my duty as a husband and Grandad! I was mesmerised and totally consumed with the XC flight that was happening in front of me. 
Thankfully I’d tuned my radio to the same frequency as Hugh and Mark and could hear their chat and instructions to each other. Some of this was invaluable during the critical early stages of the flight. 
After topping out around 3000’ I joined the gaggle led by Hugh and Mark towards Lewes.
I could see that they had found a decent thermal in the distance so pushed on bar and headed in their direction. Confirmation over the radio confirmed they’d found a weak thermal that the rest of us were heading towards. My Alpina 4 cut through the air nicely and seemed to stay slightly higher than my pals. Possibly just a lucky lifty line that I chose. 
This got me to the rising air slightly sooner than the rest of group. I noticed a gull climbing to my right so passed the info to the gang and soon got established in a decent climb. 
Unfortunately Boomerang Pete didn’t quite make it and landed below us. Grita and Marcin were also pretty low and I wasn’t sure if they could hook up to the climb. 
I noticed Olly was pretty high on his red Gin Leopard and doing well trailing Hugh and Mark. I was now flying with Pete Impey. I was in good company as Pete has a good history of long XC flights from the Southern sites. 
We continued West along the South Downs over the Brighton Football stadium and towards Ditchling Beacon.
I took a more direct line to the Beacon and Pete veered more on a line towards Devils Dyke. As soon as our paths differed I started to gain height and noticed Pete rapidly heading down. Pete continued towards Truleigh but unfortunately never got the climb he was looking for and landed near Small Dole.
Probably frustratingly for Pete I got a good climb directly above where he landed. 
As I was 360ing I noticed a wing behind me to the East that appeared to be doing well. I took this climb lazily to its peak to enable the pilot behind me to catch up. It was Marcin. He’d done extremely well as previously I’d seen him low with Grita and thought he may have landed. 
Marcin gained height to my level just over 4000’ and we glided West towards Steyning then Storrington. 
This part of the flight was so rewarding as the air was smooth and we managed to take a few pics of each other. Good times. As I was forwarding the photos to Marcin and others I noticed a message on my phone. It was from my wife informing me that our granddaughter didn’t have to go back to my Daughters until later that evening. Awesome news and lucky me!

We picked up a few more good thermals and everything seemed pretty comfortable. Marcin then drifted further North and started to lose altitude. He was only a hundred metres away from me but appeared to be in completely different air. I was more than comfortable around 4500’ and I could see Marcin drift down eventually landing near Pulborough after a 53km flight.

As Marcin was heading down I was joined by a pilot on a paramotor. This was a first for me. I’ve had encounters with light aircraft, sailplanes, military aircraft and helicopters but never a paramotor. He was around 1000’ feet below me and I was in a good climb so he took a few minutes to get to my altitude to say hello. He completed his task and buzzed off to the North West. 

As I was now out of company I decided to turn around and attempt to fly home as promised to my wife earlier. She however wasn’t expecting me to be 45 kilometres away! Nor had I intended to be. It just happened! 

The first ten kilometres heading East were relatively easy as the climbs were high and glides long and fairly fast into the light headwind. Just as I was approaching Steyning the sun dimmed behind the clouds and my altitude started to drop. I decided to glide North East towards land that was being warmed. I probably should have gone South East into possible convergence over the Downs. 
Anyway it was a glide all the way down landing a few hundred metres from where Pete Impey had landed an hour or so earlier. 
So 60km in total and one of my favourite ever flights. The company in the sky was fantastic. 
I packed up my kit a happy man and phoned Julie letting her know I hadn’t quite managed to fly home. Oops. As you can imagine she wasn’t quite an ecstatic as me. Anyway a bunch of roses, steak meal, wine and her favourite ice cream later did the trick and she hasn’t burnt my kit, yet. 
Congratulations to Hugh, Mark and Olly for their amazing flights. It was a privilege flying part of the same route as them. It gave me a huge understanding of their skill, experience, perseverance and professionalism. We are so lucky to have these guys in our club.