Arriving early it's a quick start when the clouds get going around 11am. Unfortunately i'd forgotten how my rather old task was set up and just turned right after take off. Finding lift I started to thermal up and head down ridge. This will come back to haunt me later as I needed to have gone at least 50 metres more into wind after take off.
Climbs are good heading east with one hitting 5.7 m/s on the averager. Harness has started playing up again. It's really hard to get my head down limiting the speed I can pull on glides. To make it worse as soon as I raise myself to look ahead it's dropping back to the heads up position so I have to work hard to get back to head down again. More work needed on the adjustment system.
Low point is at Steyning the final gap before the Dyke. Had gone upwind to a cloud but didn't find anything so headed backed towards the hill and a newly formed cloud. Fortunately the core is at the edge of the town close to the potential bomb out fields.
Plenty of pgs at the previous section and even more at the dyke with a single HG in the bottom landing. Nev is above me as he's returning from his turn point to the east of the Dyke.
Nev heads on back whilst I look for some more height and wait for another cloud on the far side of the gap to glide towards. Return journey was fairly simple with best climb of the flight being 6.4 m/s on the averager and some sustained glides in lift.
Slight panic when the instruments warn about the airspace so I have to go fast to keep out of the clouds and stay below the 4500' ceiling.
The compeo finally gives a warbles for the first time after I've flown into the cylinder that I missed at the start of the flight. Note to self check task before using in future in case it needs additional amendments as my library of presets is rather old and probably needs reviewing.
A good landing on the edge of one of the low bramble patches is the perfect end to an enjoyable flight even if some of the flying was quite punchy and included my first time weightless in the UK after many years.
