Today’s forecast was showing a potential “cliff day”. The early signs were not great, so myself and Dave Weeks took the Falke to Sidmouth to have a peek.There seemed to be little chance of soaring looking at the waves.
Back at North Hill it was decided to wait until the wind picked up. The direction was basically SE and building.
By 12:30 we decided to have a go, Stuart towed us to Farway common where we released.
The main run down the cliffs was not working so we used the east facing cliff at Beer.
Simon Leeson and Mark Courtney (Simon Leeson)
Slowly but surely we climbed, we pushed into wind and to our surprise the smooth lift continued out to sea for a considerable distance. Very carefully we teased areas of lift, eventually we could run down to Sidmouth at 3000ft above the cliffs in smooth runs climbing at 1 kt.
Climbing in the smooth (Mark Courtney)
Stuart, Dave Weeks and Jimbob arrived at Farway airstrip earlier in the day with the trailer but could not get in through the locked gates ( we did fill out a PPR form online).
A quick txt from Dave suggested we fly back to NH, by now the upper wind was southerly, and with the forecast heavy rain approaching from the west, we talked to Exeter ATC and set off home.
Over Sidmouth (Mark Courtney)
The trip back seemed to take about 2 minutes! We arrived back at over 2000ft, the circuit was very turbulent and the approach was “interesting”!
Just as we trundled to the hangar the retrieve crew arrived back with the trailer.
Patience rewarded (Simon Leeson)
A fantastic day with a flight time of just under 3 hours, lesson of the day was be patient.
Forecast for tomorrow looks even better with a southerly wind on the cards. - Mark Courtney
