If you are prone to superstition then you would probably avoid attempting your first Southdowns experience on the 13th day of the month which also happened to be a Friday but being logical engineer types Rowan and Phil were oblivious to this kind of woolly thinking and had succumbed to the goading from 611Matt (formerly H5Matt) that Parham was the place to be for gliding epicness. David Masson the Lasham weather guru added further incentive with a perfect forecast and even Trevor Stuart was planning a 6000' aerotow from Nympsfield to get to the Southdowns, fly the ridge and then turbo or even tow home! It had to be good.
M5Matt to felt the pressure not to miss out and committed which made up Phil's mind and so Phil set-about the not insignificant task of getting all his ducks in a row so he could go too. No sooner had he got them all lined up when the Parham office lady blew all their heads off with one shot saying that Friday wasn't a club day and there would probably not be a tug pilot. Quite taken aback by Matt's disbelief however she did offer to call back if she heard different and about half an hour later it was all back on again. Phew! Rowan jumped on the band wagon too taking advantage of some stored up overtime.
Phil and M5Matt travelled up on Thursday so as to be fully rested for the adventure, and after a leisurely meal at the pub round the corner they had a text from Pete saying to save in him a place in the grid, he too would be arriving in the morning with Rowan. The 3 amigo's would become the 4 Musketeers!
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| Phil, Rowan and Pete |
The wind was perfect 020-20kts and it was warm for a change, very warm. Surprisingly the ridge seemed to be pretty soft and we suspect this was as a result of thermal interference or something?? It did mean that we spent a good 45min together with most of the Parham grid and probably a couple of Lasham gliders stuck on the Chanctonbury Ring trying to get enough height to jump the Steyning Gap. The traffic made climbing difficult as trying to turn in lift often resulted in getting in someone else's way. A couple of the local Duo Discii eventually made the jump and Matt soon followed suit reporting back sensible heights for Rowan and Phil to have a go. A little later we had all made a start at Lewes but not before Phil had taken the long way around to the front of the ridge near Jack and Jill which had him looking up at the weeds with his wheel down before scratching his way back up the side of the hill to a more comfortable height. We had declared 5 trips between Lewes and Butser Hill for a distance of 340km which Pete, Phil and Matt completed without any further stressful moments. Rowan was suffering from a late night and an Oh my God it's early start so having flown to both ends of the ridge decided to land and call it not a bad day.
The drive home that night had us fall right in amoungst the Friday the 13th demons. Still definitely worth the trip though.
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| Throttle wide open heading for Lewes |
