1994 flight from the dyke to Deal!

Sunday 5th June 1994 looked like it was going to be on at the Dyke and I was contemplating having an early night on Saturday, when I got a 'phone call from Dave Matthews. He told me that I had got the dates mixed up and that there was a Club Night at the Dyke pub. He also said that, according to his theory, Sunday would be a good X/C day due to it being early in the summer and post cold frontal with an approaching warm front. So it was up to the pub to attend an excellently entertaining talk on instrumentation, by Ron Richardson. It was also nice to be able to take the fairly rare oppertunity to have a chat with Ron and Val(and blackmail them with the photographic evidence of the goings on at Ron's 40th birthday party)! If I'd known then how much of Ron I was going to see on the following day I would probably not have been quite so bothered. We got home late and got the gliders loaded up ready for the morning, On Sunday morning I overslept until 9.30 a.m. -- oh dear -- but still went through the routine of grating a teaspoon of fresh ginger into my cup of coffee(it numbs the nerves in your stomach and prevents airsickness in rough thermals,without causing drowsiness). I was rigging my Santana at the Dyke in a moderate westerly wind and watching a few gliders, including Tony Lucessi, already soaring Newtimber. By the time I was clipped in they'd already thermalled away into a good looking sky. I had three flights, attempting to get to Newtimber in difficult to work thermals, which all ended in tight top landings back at the Dyke(one of them involved having to avoid Sky Systems training ground-handling on top of the east bowl)Steve Cook, on a borrowed Moyes which I think had a handling problem due to mis-rigging, bottom landed, as did Johnny Carr on the Swift (perhaps it would be more associated with thermals if it were sponsored by Damart). Two paragliders managed to get airborne in a rare lull but landed very soon afterwards. Presumably it was too strong; it was certainly rough!My next attempt found me in a weak thermal that carried me over to Newtimber, where I joined five others and we soared for over 45 mins. Lots of thermals were coming through, but all of them were too weak to gain any real amount of height in. As usual, people soaring the Dyke looked like they were frequently doing better than us. Eventually a good cycle came through at Newtimber and all six of us went over the back in it. Ron Richardson and Dave Matthews were initially the highest but Trevor Ackroyd and myself were in the best core, slightly upwind in 8-up lift. The situation resolved to the point where there were three of us in the weakening thermal core: Ron on top; me in the middle; Trevor below. We could see the others landing out as we drifted with the lift along the line of the Ditchltng ridge. I had to let Trevor through as he was climbing faster than me, turning very flat, as you can on a Rumour. Trevor moved about 200 yds. away from me and got a slightly better climb, so I flew towards him, also finding a better climb, until we converged to be back together again. Ron was watching from above, picking off the best bits as we marked them. We topped out at about 2,500 ft. a.s.l. and, not being able to find anything else around, stuck with the thermal, gradually losing about 900 ft. As we drifted over Cliffe Hill, past Lewes at 1,600 ft. a.s.l., Trevor went back into wind and got some better lift. He gained height and turned north. Sadly, although there were plenty around, the inland thermals were too weak to maintain in and he went down. With Ron still above me I continued to drift over the new opera house at Glyndebourne, all the while losing height in weak lift, until I was so low, at 1000 ft. above the ground, that I had to head downwind towards Chalvington, north of the Arlington reservoir. Ron saw me rewarded by a 2-up climb and came over to join me, still above. I seem to remember seeing a de-rigged glider on the ground near here which could have been Tony Lucessi. As I passed the reservoir the lift diminished again so I headed towards Hellingly hospital to get a bit more inland. Ron waited up high until I contacted lift, then came over to join me. I could see a few scattered wisps of sea-breeze convergence and one clump of the same that was more solid looking, so I headed north to dive under it to the inland side. Ron wisely stayed in the lift to see what happened to me. I went down and down until I was making a landing approach from 300 ft. at -- the seemingly appropriatly named -- Brownbread Street.It was 2.00 p.m. so the pub would still be open: I'd done 25 miles without making a mistake so maybe things could have been worse. All the same, it was not nice to look up and see Ron still at 2,000 ft. Just as I was choosing whether to land in the field with horses in it or the field with power lines in it, BANG!; I hit the sea-breeze front at 200 ft. a.g.l. There was plenty of strong but totally incoherent lift. I had a real good scrap with the sea-breeze front: a 360 here; change direction and a 360 there; S-turning and trying to stay in the lifting bits of the churning air -- in 3 miles of drifting I gained 70 ft.! I was then blessed with two bits of good fortune:­ Firstly I saw a group of white birds leave the ground on the north side of Battle and immediately headed for them but:"Oh woe is me!", they flew south, flapping all the way, in the cold side of the front. Half-way to where I'd seen them take off from I stumbled into a more solid patch of lift and started S-turning, to feel my way round it. I then noticed a glider which I had not seen ealiier, coming at me on a long glide from a WNW direction, losing height all the way. It turned out to be Warren Simonsen. He arrived at the same height as me,100 yds. to the west, failed to contact the lift and went down at Battle. The second bit of luck was a bonfire, which had just been lit, indicating by its smoke trail that it was in a north-westerly airflow and therefore just on the warm side of the front. I circled the consolidating 4-up lift, staying exactly downwind of the bonfire and rising with the smoke. Everything became more comfortable and less sweat-drenched!
I climbed to 2000 ft. and then headed inland a bit, using the bonfire as a marker to give a good mental picture of the front, going just south of the Powdermill reservoir. Upon climbing to 3,000 ft. I met up with Ron again and shouted an appropriate greeting, as he'd been convinced that I'd gone down. We thermalled together for about 5 miles and the sea-breeze convergence cloud was starting to form a solid line behind and above us towards the coast and out beyond Rye to the east. Many, many miles to the west there was some high cloud visible from the approaching warm front. As we passed Rye I headed inland following the line of the Royal Military Canal(disused) around the inland edge of Walland Marsh, thus having a good chance of staying on the warm side of the front. Ron carried on drifting due east and was about 1,000 ft. above me when I saw him rocketing along in a straight line downwind without losing any height; he was obviously in the sea-breeze front, lower than the visible convergence. Wishing that I was up there with him, I set off on a straight glide to follow his lead, only stopping to circle after hitting a good bit of 5-up lift. I saw Ron, by now about 3 miles east of me, stop and circle his way up the warm side of the convergence cloud until he was out of sight round the bend in the front. A dozen Hercules transport aircraft flew by in procession, following the coastline, about 3,000 ft. below. They were returning from Normandy after having dispatched their loads of paratroopers to mark the D-Day commemeration. I climbed up the warm side of the convergence cloud 5 miles due south of Ashford and followed the line of it round the Military Canal and Romney Marsh, thankful to have the sea-breeze lift to get across the 'Ashford Blue Hole.' As I rounded the corner of cloud:"Oh joy of joys!,"the convergence line was clearly defined for the next 20 miles to beyond Dover: I was thinking:"It's on for Deal from here," but told myself to stay calm and not make any more mistakes. I was amazed not to be able to see Ron where I expected him to be: having a whale of a time flying the front. As I zoomed flat out along the front,at 4,000 ft., I looked down through a hole in the cloud and saw Ron 2,000 ft. below me, sinking in the cold side. It seems that the convergence cloud to the east had not formed when Ron got to Hythe, just 10 mins. before I did, and so, with no visible signs of the front, he had pressed on and got caught on the cold side. He landed near Folkestone. I then had another 15 miles of classic full speed sea-breeze front flying, never below 3,000 ft. and up to 5,000 ft., running parallel to the coast south of the Channel Tunnel entrance at Folkestone and then just north of Dover harbour. The Channel Tunnel is an impressive construction,but will anyone be happy about the security of such a venture --particularly in view of the discovery of a terrorist plot to disable it by booking a cargo load of tampons on Le Shuttle, with the intention of activating the fire sprinkler system exactly half-way across?-- Anyhow, from 5,000 ft. at Dover harbour I could see the mainland of France below me on the other side; it looked tempting but, with a cross-wind, I wouldn't realistically have expected to make it more than half-way. There was a short gap in the convergence line over Dover town but I only lost 400 ft. crossing it and then climbed back up to 5000 ft. at South Foreland.
I turned north, away from the convergence, on a heading towards Deal, thinking that perhaps I'd make it to North Foreland. As I headed north I got no lift at all(the inland thermals were still too weak) and so, thinking that Deal would have to do, I dropped my legs out of prone at 3,000 ft. and pedalled the air for a while to get the blood flowing again(they'd been hooked up in prone for 4 hours and I wanted to have a functioning undercarriage): At 1,500 ft. over Deal I flew out to sea to take a photo, just to show that I'd got beyond the coast, finally landing 3 yds. from the low tide mark in front of Deal Castle(Ref. TR 379 523). It was about 3,45 p.m.I kissed the ground and put the pebble d'amour into my harness pocket. --Well, I had been trying to make this flight since my first attempt in 1989 ended after only 25 miles!-- I couldn't carry my glider up the steep beach as the shingle was sliding down under my feet, so the children who had run up to me when I landed got behind and pushed the keel for me. The sea-breeze came in on the Deal coast at 5.00 p.m. and didn't look like it was that usable --but who knows; maybe by waiting over South Foreland for 75 mins. the record could have been broken? Having de-rigged, I found a pub which was serving all afternoon, despite it being Sunday, and arranged for a retrieve. It may be coincidence but the only two gliders to make Deal in the last six years or more had been Santanas. Sadly, they're no longer manufactured anyhow: I'm sure that I can think of better ways of spending a Sunday afternoon;it's just that I've never managed to think of any thus far!

DAVE WILLIAMSON.

Distance: 74.25 miles.

Glider: Santana SRC.

Vario: Davron 200.

Time: 3 hrs. from leaving Newtimber.

Harness: CJ Stirrup.

Shit stepped in prior to take off: Dog.

Fags consummed during flight: O. Fags consummed after flight: 20.