| Flight details: | Frustrating morning spent lobbing off into small thermals, diving back onto the slope trying to avoid the others who'd done the same. I got one thermal that might have worked, but I got a bit of a fright when a P51 Mustang (or similar e.g. second world war fighter) went straight over my head between 30 - 50ft away doing a couple of hundred kts!) Do I bother with an airprox? (probably not).
Was thinking of giving up at 2pm and thought i would have one more go, took off into a thermal got up a little bit, pushed out and the pilot in front turned left... Bugger I hate turning left low down, but what the hell i followed him round and found the edge of the thermal, lost 1/3 of my wing, somewhat scaring the pilot below me as he was climbing and for a moment I wasn't... a quick pump and the wing recovered, I continued turning and got away...
Sadly the i couldn't catch the Ozone Vulcan? on the first climb, till we got to about 1000 metres when we went on the first glide when the superior performance of the xc2 told and left the poor guy on the Vulcan for dead, I accelerated away as he fell beneath me and after a couple of minutes I found a solid climb and yelled to him to let him know there was lift in my direction, he followed tentatively and never really established himself as I rocketed to base at 1400m. I then saw a sailplane thermalling cross wind at the next cloud, so I beetled over to join him only to realise he was going round in zeros. He left as I arrived - bastard. I then headed off straight downwind over Hungerford and watched the other glider land and thought I'd be on the ground shortly afterwards...
I then found a small climb that then developed as I got higher and took me back to base. I then spent a considerable time between 1000 and 1500m cursing my summer gloves and thanking the lord for my new sleeping bag that was keeping me from suffering from Hypothermia. I enjoyed several thermals with sailplanes and saw countless more when on glide. |
