Jack had his vintage Gentle Lady glider and I had my old but trusty Algebra thermal / slope floater.
The video below shows Jack's model struggling to get into the very strong 4mph NNW wind that topped out at about 6mph but with some thermal influence as the morning went on. Perfect visibility (not).
The visibility got progressively better as the morning went on but the wind decreased to nearly nothing but with the aid of some small thermals and the general airflow moving up over the hill we managed about 1 1/2 hours soaring. If any of you are thinking about buying a floater glider or have one ready to be built then today should encourage you to get it built and flying I must build some more of my Elan!!) These floaty gliders don't need to be expensive and I think both our gliders cost less than £50 each.
A great start to spring lets hope we get to see some more of you up on the hill side soon. I will leave you with a video of Jack demonstrating how little sky you actually need to fly in when the visibility starts to go by using just the very top part of the slope and just a few feet of the ground.
Turned out right nice!
I didn't think we would get to fly, had enough trouble finding Paul in the fog when I arrived and he add his hi vis on! But turned out to be a great mornings gentle flying. Pretty warn up too.
ReplyDeleteSimilar at Devils Dyke where I was flying my Osprey 100. Almost no wind but you could launch into thermals as they swept up the slope. Great lift - almost out of sight once.
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