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Day 483 - Combe Gibbet - Berkshire | |
| 04 06 2020 | ||
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A new site - Combe Gibbet in Berkshire (where they used to hang people). This site chosen instead of Llangollen due to Coronavirus restrictions in Wales plus its about the same driving time, so whynot? Arrived on site, it was very light thermic wind, the deal was - on a low hill, to wait for the thermals, time the launch, get a climb and climb out, once high you should have time to find the next thermal to stay up, lets see how turning theory into practise worked out:- Flight #1 Waited on a crowded launch, tried to take off but failed, waited, tried again, the thermals were turning my glider. I took off later than I wanted during the cycle and managed 7 minutes on the slope dodging other gliders before some serious slope scratching, then the whole wind stopped, and so did I, sliding in on my harness across the slope. Flight #2 Now, in a much better take off position with less crowds I chose the time perfectly after seeing two gliders start thermalling in front of the hill, I headed over and took the climb to approx 1000ft ATO, then spotted Eddie in another climb to my right, much higher than me, so I headed over trying to work out where his thermal would be at my altitude. Result! I ran straight into it and climbed all the way to the top at 3500ft ATO where we hit what felt like an inversion and we had drifted way behind take off with the themral so opted to go on glide to get back to the field. Nightmare glide, in sink all the way on half bar - we only just managed to get back into the take off field, you can see by the photos the glide angle, into a headwind, a lower spec glider would not have made it I am 100% sure. On another note, I think that if we decided to go XC we might have made it to Brighton (or am I dreaming) Flight #3 After a drink we took the 3rd flight which was nice, 1.25 hours in good thermals, up to 3000ft ATO and a bit of restitution allowed us to fly all over them place, it had calmed down enough for the to grab some 360 cam footage too. Great days flying, maybe one of the better UK days I've had, not masses of
hours (2 in total) but really good quality flying.
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