COMBAT AND COMPETITION.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

CHAPTER ELEVEN A TESTING TIME
to drop into my boots again as the tug started a let down towards
Lavenham. This was well short of my intended release, barely
exceeding the 500km circle centered on the goal at St Just, and by the
time we arrived over the middle of the airfield, at 1,200 ft asl, I was
almost beside myself with rage.
Fortunately I ran straight into a rough and choppy thermal and
climbed slowly away - drifting off downwind towards Wethersfield
and Harlow. Whilst the tug pilot, with his tank nearly dry, dropped
down into the circuit and landed.
The first hour soon degenerated into endless circling - struggling
to remain airborne - in constant danger of being blown towards the
middle of London and far south of track. Then a marginal
improvement in conditions allowed a change of heading to starboard
and progress across several cloud streets, which brought me to Watford
exactly one hour and twenty five minutes from release. Ninety plus
kilometres into my flight and less than 65 kph. Nothing like good
enough.
At this point, with a sky of thin and flattish cumulus streeting into
the distance over the Berkshire Downs, things began to look a little
more promising - and I made use of the opportunity, while it lasted,
to work my way north of track. Thus providing the basis for a dogleg
flight, in case the straight line distance from Lavenham proved
insufficient, and at the same time putting the latter part of my route
directly downwind. An advantage if conditions deteriorated later in
the day.
Watford to Calne took an hour and twenty minutes. A great
improvement. But it still left almost 300 kilometres to go, with less
than four hours of convection remaining. And Calne itself was almost
my undoing. Time to photograph a turning point for that dogleg - and
the town would do nicely. Minutes later I was scraping the barrel,
almost looking in through the windows of a vast country house.
After several attempts to climb away, each followed by a
despairing return to the same thermal source, a tiny cloud shadow
drifted across the courtyards and cloisters down below. A proper
upcurrent gathered itself together - and I was tossed back to sanity,
over 2,000 feet higher, and some miles downwind of Lacock Abbey
which I had lately been admiring at close quarters.
As the sun moved into the west and the clouds gradually vanished,
the top of each climb seemed like the last of the day. Long heart
stopping glides. On and on for miles. Nothing except the driving force
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