Cross country flying is ok, well it's better than ok, for me
it's great, pushing oneself to your own personal limits and getting across country
as efficiently as you can is fantastic but I have decided, strictly on a personal basis, to
add a different dimension to my cross country escapades. I have therefore
introduced cross country sign collecting.
The idea, and it has the seed which could become more
popular as people realise how enjoyable it is, involves flying away from your
launch point and taking a photo of the nearest signpost you can find.
Here is a beauty I collected on Sunday, isn't she lovely?!
I've collected quite a few the last year or so but I've been
somewhat hesitant to publicly air my passion for signs. One of my greatest
finds was this little gem.
My flight was great and (for me) no shame in my landout at
Little Rissington airfield.
The guys there were very welcoming and helpful, and when I'd
arranged a retrieve and turned back up at Little Rissington at 21:30 they
turned out to open the gates.
As I thermal'd above the airfield, joined by a couple of Ventus
and LS8's I sctratched away thinking
that if I landed at least I'd have some company, but after a while, as well as
being a bit lower I realised they were all popping their engines.
I've mixed feelings about engines but the overriding feeling
is jealousy.
How happy I was to see them turbo'ng away from certain land
out while I turned finals and landed on a very nice runway.
A little later a gent from Aston Down landed at Little
Rissington, unfortunately without putting his wheel down and on the runway.
Very unfortunate to see but it does make the biggest Morse code I've ever seen
and looked like this -... ..- --. --. . .-.
Until I landed out I was having a great day, fantastic runs
with great air, well that was until the air changed and it all went to custard.
I would have thought it would have looked more like:
ReplyDelete..-. ..- -.-. -.- .. - -.-- ..-. ..- -.-. -.- ..-. ..- -.-. -.-
How was the sky and why didn't you get an aero-retrieve?
I had an interesting time, easy run to RIV, then decided to take a cloudstreet to marlborough only to discover that there was no lift under it, still had a 2500 feet, so raced across to every cloud in the vicinity, none of which were working.
The radio then started chirping away (i decided not to join in, Liz I will check VP) with lots of people saying that they were struggling below 2k at the same time over what appeared to be a very wide area. Some sort of mad cycling? Steve B?
Just below 2000ft I said ..-. ..- -.-. -.- .. - to myself and bimbled out into the blue where i found a relatively nicely shaped thermal that gently took me back to 5k, where I saw another glider hurtle past 500ft above climbing faster as he/she went. With that I went for a little explore and found a nice 6up that took me to a 7k QNH!
I then casually worked my way back to Lasham, having first had to lose a little height to get under the airspace just east of RIV.
Anyway was a very nice day out bar that weird 30mins when it appeared the gods were trying to put everyone on the ground and succeeded with a fair number!
Richard
PS looked at a Stemme taking off at lasham, that's a cool machine!
PPS Loved the write up as always, thanks Chris