Ditchling Beacon - The Back And Beyond!

Today Rob, Jack, Clint, Graham and I went to try out a new slope. Most of us have flown the North face of Ditchling Beacon but how many have flown the South / South Easterly bowl at the back of the main slope? Well it was so beautiful up there. A rolling slope (not massively steep) with a valley looking South but turning round towards the East.

We got there at 9.00am and the car park was virtually full. We made our way over to the slope (across the road form the car park). There was a breeze and a slope, so to me that meant lift. Chucked the Ninja off and watched it disappear into thick scrub (chest height brambles, nettles and gorse) and found it up a Hawthorne tree, what a great start!
After many failed ninja launching attempts we left the flying to the floaters (the same floaters that Jack & I had left at home). Rob had his new Dream Flight Libelle, Clint had his Elan and Graham had his trusty motor glider. Here Rob is flying his Libelle.

Graham led the way and showed us that the far part of the bowl was the place to pick up thermals. I rigged my RCRCM Typhoon and walked around the bowl with Rob, Jack and Clint. Well Clint soon got in the swing of thermalling and was soon up so high that Shoreham had him on Radar. I chucked the Typhoon off and after some low circuits over the tree's she picked up the lift and was away. Climbing up and up and I had to drop full landing flap to loose some height followed by a nice landing across the slope. Jack tried out his RCRCM Mini Vec in the same place but the smaller wing just wasn't giving it enough lift in the very light conditions.

After 3 hours up there we retired and left Graham enjoying the lovely view and warming sunshine.
This slope seemed to get the thumbs up from all who attended, with mutterings it was better than Itford and Reigate!