Combe Monday 25th July

A good day at combe. More westerly than ideal on the hill but plenty of climbs to be had. Left in big gaggle at midday and flew together for the next two hours. Blue thermals to 6000ft and very good visability, Spinaker tower at Portsmouth and Isle of wight easily visable from 5 grand above Combe! Loads of sailplanes about and we had a great view of a Pitts flying aerobatics between popham and lasham below us. A bit rough a times at the inversion and increasingly windy, we were caught by the top cover comming from the west and all landed just short of Butser for 50k. Ken W retrieved us after two hours sat in the pub at west meon.

 

Chris J

Bell Hill Sunday 24th July

Lovery day at Bell today. Sky didnt look that gret, overcast but on arrival but some dark bases were forming. Paragliders were blown out by 12.30 and whilst it was off to the west at first it came on from 1pm onwards.

Very buoyant and climbs to cloudbase at 2800 ATO. The arrival of some sea air after 2 limited height gains but still very flyable.

James

Westbury - 14th July 2011

 
Westbury 14th July 2011
 
Conditions just about as good as it gets - 10Mph Northerly, very unstable, nice big fluffy Cu's every 5 miles.
Took off at around 12, up to 4500ft in around 10-15 minutes, then down to behind Bell hill where I had a TP. Struggled a bit to get to TP (why are they always in a blue hole - odds on I guesss!) so flew a few miles away to PG's going XC, got up, refused to share cloud with fellow PG (two is one too many) and embarked on long trip back home in the 10-ish Mph headwind. Conditions steadily improved, with some incredible lift but also corresponding rapid sink in between clouds. Nice to be in shorts at 5500ft and not feel cold, felt like Florida! Flew back into Westbury at around 3:15 feeling very happy with the day. Trace below.
 
Loads of HG's out (incl Tim, Brian), quite a few went XC, but the large gaps made it difficult for some. PG's seem to be scaring themselves - it was very unstable.
 
Nev
 
 
   

Harting Down 13th July 2011

You know how it goes – haven’t flown for nearly a month, desperation rising and then a good forecast. Having convinced yourself you are going flying in three days time the forecast slowly deteriorates, but some how you convince yourself that you have got it wrong, so you ask everyone else what they think in the vain hope that they will highlight to you that the forecast is in fact as it was three days ago. Its hopeless, you are going no matter what, some kind of homing beacon drawing you to the hill regardless of conditions.

And so I went to Harting on Wednesday afternoon, rigged and ready to fly by 1.30. The sky was overcast but there were some clouds around with good dark bases and plenty of wind, slightly off to the west (far from ideal). After taking off it turned out to be typical Harting conditions; lumpy broken lift that is difficult to soar and I resigned myself to a flight close to take off and close to the ground. After 15 mins I was at minus 59ft ATO and eyeing up the bottom landing, already cursing the sport, my lack of time to go flying, and formulating how my blog entry might read.

Then I got a low save just in front of the main spur and found room to put in a few turns, I was soon at 1000ft ATO and headed over to the beacon where I got another climb to 2k. Then had a very pleasant 45 mins in a fairly buoyant sky.

Graham G was out on his Target and put in a good flight and top landing.

Second flight ended in typical Harting style…..at the bottom.

James