Flying 11/05/05

The wind when Tony and I arrived (2:30 ish)was averaging 12 to 16 mph at the trig point on top of Sth Barrule, with it dropping to 8 and gusting strongly to 22 to 25 mph. We decided to sit it out and wait for the thermal activity to reduce a little. In the meantime, Martin and his HG arrived by which time some of the ferocity of the thermals had subsided, I was first off on my Brontes and straight into good lift with a six hundred FPM thermal hoisting me to 700 ato over the hill top. I pushed forward a little and found some more lift taking me to just over 1000′ ato. I pushed out from the hill and towards the left to try and find some more lift, didn’t so flew back to the hill and landed on the hillside to advise on conditions for Tony and Mike Swales. In the meantime Martin (HG) had took off and was skying out.

Conditions continued to moderate and my next flight saw me landing 250 below take off. Martin (HG) meanwhile had top landed his HG and Tony and Mike had taken off and flown down towards the cars with Mike finding some lift just after t/o and down near the cars. Martin (HG) took off again in marginal conditions and also flew down to the road. After my climb back up the slope I discovered Watty on t/o preparing to fly. I took off again and found some thermal activity, enough to let me land back on top, did a touch and go and did the same again. Watty then took of on the Nova Mambo(I think that’s what its called) and found good lift out in front of t/o. I followed but didn’t manage to get as high as Watty in what we think was restitution lift off the wood in front of the hill. After floating around for about 10 minutes the lift died out and we both landed down near the cars. In the meantime, Tony seeing us flying around at about 300 ato decided to walk up for another flight and some how or other persuaded a passer by to carry his glider up the hill for him, what a smooth talker he must be!

This, the last flight of day sprang no surprises and Tony had a pleasant top to bottom.

An interesting afternoons flying had by all.