Wednesday 21st Milk Hill
Forecast was for showers and was spot on but they seemed to miss us for most of the day, Plenty of short hops for the pgs before a gagle slowly grinded its way downwind having take on off on the Wbite horse ridge, whilst everyone one in the milk bowl (myself included) watched from the ground.
Eventually the wind picked up and got too much for the PGS which meant it was time for me to fly. Bowl was definitely soarable and with 300' to play with I jump over the spur to the whitehorse ridge, Here I slowly make my way to 800' in improving lift until it statrts to rain.
Given that my objective for today was to check ut the latest set of changes to the harnes i decided to take the cautous option of a quick top landing whilst theres a good breeze and before the next heavier shower arrives. Probably the right one as Ive just carried to the field access when the shower hits. Once its gone through I decide to do another change to the backplate slider line as i'm having to tip toe the boot to keep in prone. Once derigged and loaded the sky looks prefect but the wind has dropped and the pgs in the bowl are only 50 to 100' tops. Infuriatingly the sky looked even better at 5pm in Andover with cloud streets from horizon to horizon.
Thursday 22nd Westbury
So forecast slightly better with only scattered showers after 1pm and increasing wind going more westerly later. The good news is the showers didnt show but neither did the wind until late afternoon. Nev and a gaggle of pgs managed a climbout and disappeared upwind but even Nev admitted it was touch and go for awhile.
Fourtunately the wind did pick up but the air was still active and the 4 remaining hang gliders flew, I seemed to find the best of a core that everyone was marking and proceeded to follow it back until the inevitable range boundary got in the way, Still 3300 ASL and plenty clouds to the north. After a while of floating around joined Alan in a climb over the quarry to the west where we then went a couple of clouds further west close to chapmanslade at cloudbase of 4700'. Alan went of to inspect Trowbridge whilst i played with whatever wisps were still around. Nev had already landed after his trip to Bath and back. Alan beat me into the top landing whilst I stooged around getting low enough to land.
The lesson from this one is that now I can get my head down I can no longer read my instruments whilst on glide, Time to dig out the instrument pod. Its also possible that my somewhat diminished form is a bit too small for a harness built for my prior self.
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