Upping the Ante...

It began on Thursday. A series of cheeky ‘shout outs’ intended to goad Paul and any others daft enough to bring along their mouldies to Newhaven cliffs today. No response. But the gauntlet had been laid down. I realised that I had to put my money where my mouth was or risk Paul’s comical chicken impression (again).

Slopehunter warns that “the worst aspect of these cliffs is the lack of large landing areas. It’s all a bit narrow and backed by brambles. It isn’t terrible, but it would be a challenge to land a 4-metre scale glider here.” OK, so the Ascot is a 3 not a 4 meter ship, but the words ran round my head on repeat as I loaded it into the boot of Paul’s car.

Never one to heed warnings, I passed up my last chance to chicken-out and slung the Ascot in its carry case over my shoulder and plodded up the steep road from the lower carpark to the NCI lookout – a weather-beaten structure that sits 175 feet above the sea, scanning “in excess of 400 square miles on a clear day”.

Paul and I met Rob, who was flying his trusty Ninja, and Ian, who was belting around with his M60 “hooligan machine”, with his orange Starjet waiting closely in the wings. Paul brought along his now fully-ballasted Gulp 60” racer “bling machine” and I tested the air with my increasingly battered Wildthing.    

 

After a short flight with the SAS wing, I rigged the Ascot – still secretly hoping someone would talk me out of it. Ian and Paul were strategizing landing options, which included identifying areas of long undergrowth that could be used to “ditch it”, worst case, if I failed to slow it up enough on the short approach.

Figuring that I’d worry about “the details” at the other end of the flight, I checked all the control surfaces were functioning correctly and Ian hurled it over the edge of the cliff.

The lift was mind-blowing and incredibly smooth – the type of lift that you only really experience during cliff flying.

With the prospect of this being both my first and last flight, I threw caution to the wind and tried my first loops and rolls with the Ascot – after all, if the landing was to prove fatal, I didn’t want to have squandered the opportunity to really enjoy the fantastic conditions and experience a bit more of what the Ascot’s capable of.

Eventually it was time to face the inevitable – the batteries in the TX and RX weren’t going to last for ever and this thing wasn’t going to land itself! A few circuits to test the air behind the slope and suddenly I’m on my final approach.

The Ascot was extremely stable and, with full flaps deployed, it slowed up to a complete standstill and almost floated down. The most turbulent air seemed to be just a few feet above the ground, which certainly kept it interesting but was nothing like the fierce rotor-effect that I’d been sweating about.

Worried that the first landing may have been a fluke, I thought I’d really better try another! So lobbing it off from a second time – this time both Paul and Ian having a go on the sticks – we put the Ascot through its paces once more. After another epically fun flight, I brought it back round for a second event-free landing.

Probably one of the most thrilling and rewarding days flying since I first got into the hobby. But guys seriously, next time I propose something crazy on the blog, just talk me out of it!!

Message from Paul : Just to say from an old fart's point of view - Will, you must have trouble walking with those big steel balls of yours. You definitely have upped the ante and encouraged us to fly our big mouldy's up on the cliffs at Newhaven. Well done you!!