| Flight details: | 11:30 already, and I'm still at the bottom. Is it all over? It wasn't last time. 11:40 and I'm up at the top, and off we go... A bit rough, but not too bad, and it's eay to get a few hundred over. All the usual suspects are there, but no-one takes a punt over the back. I think about it, and get to 800 ATO, but no-one's following, and the usual suspects seem more interested in going the other way. A 4-up persuades me to turn the GPS on - it shows low battery, not a good sign... Whizzing up to 800 again, and came back to the hill, with speed bar almost full on, showing a 2:1 glide on the GPS. Must be windy on the hill. Pilots below are measuring the wind. Not a good time to land, take the next thermal, and hey, 2 others are with me. Super! Now we go round and round...and over the back we are committed. me, Finn K, and man whose name I keep forgetting, on a Pulsar. We take turns finding the cores, which are all over the place, and difficult to centre. Good team work pays divvies, and we actually start climbing again a Km or so over the back, climbing through 1,000 ATO, in a 2-up. We stay in this, or nearby cores for ever, circling now over the gliding club, where sailplanes show us some cores. They stay out of ours, mostly, though one did start thermalling left in our right turn at one point. First time I've had to dodge a sailplane. Must be taking Ghandi for a ride :0) This foes on until the wood, where ther is always a thermal. Pulsar man, who has been losing height for ages, then suddenly re-appearing at our height, failed to repeat the trick, and landed around 15K. Shame. Finn now flies to the west, looking for the elixir of thermalling, but gets horribly low over the wood. I'm in vaguely lifting, very warm air, that is roughing me up, but not in any consistent fashion. I move towards Finn, and get a rocket, which turns into a 5-up to 2,000 over, as Finn wrestles with the wood. That;'s the last I saw of him (He eventually got beyond Heathfield). Goodbye, and thank |
