| Flight details: | Having landed just short of where the lift was over Mount Caburn from High & Over, I decided top walk up Caburn and give it another go. I packed up, walked to top of Caburn, no other pilots there (lots of people though), unpacked, took off again.
As the wind was off to the SSE, I tried to work the S face, which wasn't really on, and (mainly) try to find some thermals. A bit of a scrap about (!) and I managed to work up a few hundred feet ATO before pushing round the corner over the SE slopes and towards the obvious convergence cloud (OCC) over Glynde / Glynde Place.
A bit of scratching around, a couple of buzzards and a few seagulls later and I eventually managed to connect with some reasonable (as opposed to unreasonable) lift under the OCC. I got to cloudbase at just under 2000ft ASL (!) between Glyndebourne Opera House and Broyle Side.
Ringmer sailplane club was clearly active, with a few sailplanes flying around, and I saw one thermalling over Plashett Wood (just north of Broyle Side) within reach so I went on glide towards them, and found a half decent climb (neither fully-decent or indecent!).
The general wind was from the SSE, which you can see clearly from my GPS track, and so I was being drifted to the NNW as I thermalled - towards ever lowering airspace; therefore the rest of the flight was spent trying to climb as efficiently as possible then push on crosswind to try and get away from the airspace, which you can also see clearly from my GPS track.
I had to leave two good climbs, on one occaision quckly putting in big ears and appying speed bar in lift (topping out at 2300ft under 2500ft airspace), to avoid going into airspace. Not a lot of space to play with when the ground in that area is at around 5-600ft ASL! Where I landed was at about the same height ASL as the top of Mount Caburn!
I landed without any stress in a huge field near Poundgate, near Crowborough, right next to the A26.
Thank you very much to my retrieve driver (n |
