Attempt 2 at Ditching Beacon

As I looked out across Hassocks at 6am, it was absolutely motionless. Not a breath of wind. Even the paper-thin leaves on my neighbour's ornamental trees were hanging like lifeless origami statues in the still morning air. Not a murmour.

I almost sent Scott a message to call off our second attempt at Ditching Beacon in as many days but hit delete rather than send at the last moment. And I'm glad I did. When we arrived Les was already there with his Middle Phase cutting some shapes in a surprisingly brisk northwesterly. 

I attempted my first ever hand launch and managed a record short flight time of about 2 seconds - a feeble left-handed lob and not enough back-stick to blame. After a masterclass from Les (and the loan of a neck strap) I achieved my first successful solo launch. Result!

The views from the top were sensational. Crisp, high definition panoramas with stunning colour contrast and saturation. The conditions were challenging for me as a novice, sudden pockets of lift and sink - then lots of sink - then some more lift. The wind was working slightly off the slope and constantly threatening to swing round from more of a westerly direction. 

After some dubious initial attempts at flying figure eights, I managed some that actually looked like the english numeral that I was aiming for! Between launches and fishing my Spectre out of the weeds, I started to slowly gain confidence flying tighter, more controlled circuits closer to the slope. All in all it was enormously fun and rewarding and a great learning experience.

As the wind moved further off the slope, Scott and I teamed up with Ian, a fellow slope soarer and full-sized glider pilot, and meandered round to the more westerly facing bowl on the other side of the car park. Ian was flying a twitchy little German Komet - "no need to shoot these down" Ian exclaimed, referring to the full sized version, "they crashed perfectly well all by themselves!" 

Scott got in some decent air time and managed an impressive landing in what seemed to me like impossibly hostile terrain. Daunted by the near verticle drop and lack of learner-friendly landing site, and clinging to the desire to still have a working intact plane to take with me to the Isle of Wight, I sat this one out and enjoyed watching Scott and Ian tear up the sky. 

Buoyed by todays experience and the weather forecast predicting 20mph sea winds on the Isle of Wight, I say bring on next weekend!!!