Ditchling Beacon Saturday 16 Jan

Hi All,
Paul and I decided to go to the Beacon this morning earlier than planned and arrived at about 11:00.
As predicted, the car park was packed but Paul found a space just before I got there and the car next to Paul left just as I arrived - what luck.
We walked West up the hill to the bowls on that side of the hill but found a pack of para-gliders having lessons at the first bowl, so we proceeded to the next little bowl and flew there.

Paul had the Zulu and I had the Traceur I bought back from Will Attfield.

The Zulu flew really well considering there was little or no wind and very limited lift.

I launched the Traceur, but it pitched nose-down and then nose-up. It landed on its tail and the rudder pushrod snapped - possibly because it was so cold. Either way it wasn't going to fly again today.

Paul and I both had turns at the Zulu and after about 2 hours we decided to call it a day.
Just as we were walking back to the car park, we came upon Les Crane with 2 of his colleagues from SRFC - Graham and Dave, so we decided to join them for a short while. They had 2 KA8 models and both flew extremely well in the light conditions.

ABOVE.......The circumzenithal arc or circumzenith arc (CZA), also called the Bravais' arc, is an optical phenomenon similar in appearance to a rainbow, but it belongs to the family of halos arising from refraction of sunlight through ice crystals

Then Dave Taylor came along with his dog (no models) and we had a short chat before Paul and I left them to it.

At the car park I met Andrew Ledger and his wife, Clare and dog. They were there for a walk, not flying.

So, from just Paul and I at the beginning, we ended up with 5 fliers plus 2 members with their dogs, I really enjoyed the flying and meeting the people today.

Thanks to all who came - even though not everyone flew....

Rob Stanley