POWER FLYING DIARY

Page 6.
Brighton to Essex - 65 miles

I had been planning this trip for a while now and had spent many an hour looking at maps and wondering if it was feasable or not. I've come to the conclusion that flying downwind XC's on the Wasp are a lot more satisfiying than trying to row upstream as it were, into wind. The flights that I've had so far have all had some element of into wind flying and it seemed to me to be both a waste of effort and fuel. As with normal hang gliding, the way to cover distance is to go downwind.

Today, the 21st of April, 2003 it was forecast southerly at 12-13 mph. This was the forecast that I had been waiting for to achieve my goal of flying from Brighton to Hanningfield reservoir in Essex, a straight line distance of 65 miles. The reason I'd picked this goal field is because I knew it was big and flat with no obstacles.

My power flying companion Keith O'Sullivan was up for the challenge on his Doodlebug and we rigged our gliders and power units on top of the South Downs just above Brighton. As we were rigging up I asked him if he thought this was a mad idea. No, was his answer so I kept rigging.

I'd figured that we needed to fly north of Lewes and fly on a north-easterly track to the east of Tunbridge Wells and then head north to the goal field. The total flying distance was 72 miles with the turnpoint.

I was using my twin tank system for the first time and was carrying a total of 8.5 litres of fuel between them. I guessed that this would just about get me there working on my theory that I was getting around 8 miles per litre. I was planning to make more use of thermals on this flight if possible to conserve fuel.

I launched first at 3.15 and immediately realised that it was going to be a bit rough on this trip. I was getting punched around the sky in small ragged thermals. I hoped that things would improve as we headed futher inland. It didn't. It was really rough for the entire flight with some thermals torturing the vario as it screamed off the clock. They were really broken up and ragged all the way and there were only a few that we could actually stay in for more than a half a dozen turns. There seemed to be strong sink everywhere and on occasion I was flying at full power just to stay level and sometimes that wasn't working, I was still going down. At times we just couldn't get above 500 ft and Keith thought I was trying to land at one point I was getting so low. I wasn't trying to land, I was trying to stay up in incredible sink.

We ploughed on north of Lewes up past Heathfield to the east of Bewl Water, a reservoir east of Wadhurst, where Keith took over the lead and motioned for me to head north as he had the goal field punched into his GPS.

I didn't have a GPS so had no idea of our groundspeed but it looked pretty high. We were following the A229 north and I positioned my glider shadow just in front of a car which was heading north. We were maintaining speed with this car and I reckoned that we were doing at least 45 mph over the ground. Keith later told me that we were actually doing 56 mph.

Our track then took us left of Maidstone and north to the west of Rochester where we could start to see the Thames estuary. This was great, we had covered a lot of ground and I knew that we would probably make it over to Essex on the other side. I kept trying to look up at my fuel tanks to see how much I had left but I just couldn't see. I even tried taking a photo of the tanks with my digital camera but it was so bright that I couldn't see the little screen on the camera to see the picture.

It was rougher here than at any point on the flight so far and I was getting pretty worn out trying to keep the glider on track. I kept getting turned left but I couldn't figure out why. The glider seemed to be acting like a weather vane and pointing in that direction. At times I just let it do it just to get some rest from the struggle to keep it on a northerly track. I think the wind must have shifted westerly at height and this was making it difficult to stay on track. Even this explanation didn't make any sense to me though since it shouldn't really matter what direction the wind is blowing, I should feel comfortable flying in any direction in it. I began wondering if the glider had developed a turn somehow during the flight and I spent a few minutes scrutinising each wing to see if anything was amiss. Nothing seemed out of place though and by this time we were out over the middle of the Thames Estuary.

There were a couple of ships passing underneath us about 1,500 ft below. Keith later said he could smell the diesel fumes from the engines of the bigger one. I sat in some lift over the centre of the channel and took some pics looking east and west.

We only had a few miles to go now to the goal field and I was happy to see Hanningfield reservoir appear ahead of us. The landing field was big and flat and when I got down I realised that I was completely exhausted from one of the roughest flights I've had for a long time. I guess that it being only April I should expect strong ragged thermals but after flying through them for a total over-ground distance of 72 miles, I was finished. My landing wasn't brilliant as a result of it. There was no drama but it was just sloppy and I really should have kept just something in reserve to make a better one. I'll remember that next time. It was 5.45 pm. when we landed.

When I checked the fuel level I was amazed to find that I still had about 3 litres left. It proved that flying with light use of the throttle, a few thermals and a tail-wind will give you a hell of a lot more distance out of these power units. I reckon that I could have done at least another 30 miles making 100 miles a feasable distance.

All in all, a very nice flight and an ambition realised.

Total flight time was 2.5 hrs
Total distance flown 72 miles
Straight lines distance 65 miles.
Fuel used - 5.5 litres
Glider - K4
Power unit - Wasp