Charged up to the tow field only to see lovely altostratus or so covering the sky. Had a few tows and chatted with the pilots but not much going up. By early afternoon however it was breaking and scatter cumulus was visible.

About 3pm it had broken sufficiently for the sun to have a good look and the ground and get it pumping. Mark R suggested that this was the 'window' of the day, and indeed it was.

Towed up whilst looking at Woody circling above and Bart circling low downwind. Over the eastern hedge and zeroing at 500ft the thermal solidified as it approached the farm in the north east corner. (Or I finally wandered into the core) and I had a lovely smooth climb to 3200ft. Halfway through the climb out I saw Mark R dart over but encounter nothing but sink and land sharpish. Looked out to see Woody and Bart circling a couple of k's away on aline just north of Dereham.

After relaxing a taking some photos suddenly realized I had been in a nice 2  (m/s) or so down for the last few minutes and was down to 1800ft. So camera away and scratching around underneath Woody and Bart who were happily circling above.

Quickly gave up and started heading home with quite a nice groundspeed, didn't check GPS, and landed north of the A47 above Wendling.

Straight away retrieved by a nice chap from the recent Airways school - sorry didn't catch or forgot your name!

Managed 5k out and maybe a 1.5k back, staying up for just over half an hour; but I really enjoyed having a quick blast with my mates on a lovely autumn day!

Thanks to Bill, Mark R and Woody and anyone else who winched.

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Had a nice hour at West Runton Friday, although a little breezy, I got off and went from Sherringham to Cromer, I should have gone on, but thought I would save that trip to mundesley for Saturday, hahaha, had I only know the wind would be too light. Never mind, I met a few new locals and had a good beer and meal in the pub.
 I was nearly put off when I arrived to find someone cliff hanging and not gail hanging. I have put pics on my face book page.

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By Bill Bankes-Jones

2nd and last planned flight of the day. Thanks to Mark for the tow, ( I had planned to relieve him on the winch----he was on for virtually all of the day; and Jon Wood jr for the retrieve in the cool car..........does this sound a bit like the oscars??

Saw Darren climb out, headed for that area. Could not directly contact what he was in; payed close attention to what the wing was telling me, looking for sun, collector, trigger, visualising the connection between this and the fairly substatial clouds, ended up over Hyde Hall, climbed out just short of base,rough at times peak average of 600ftpm, 4000ft+. Ground wind indicators showed what little drift there was was westerly, nearest active looking cloud Dereham way. Glide Dereham. Same routine.........sun source/collector, triggers, cloud, how do they connect; climb some.

Consider out and return , Leonardo tells me 12kmph head wind from West. Did not feel it. Decide against out and return. Leonardo switches off--low battery--was full charged over night, (going for li poly option may be over winter.) Switch on sol 5. Hang around over Dereham, looking North there looks to be a line of cloud, ??convergernce??, consider a triangle to the North, but go for the sun over Mattishal, cut feilds, scrapyard. Climb to base smelling cut field.

Surface drift now from North. Sea Breeze with stepped base running North /South clearly about over Long Stratton, but moving fast. another North southish line of cloud running through Raymerston, Hingham Attleborough. Head for that. climb over Reymerston Golf course. Can see I can't follow cloud over Attleborough, due to Old Buck airspace. Now over Higham, line of cloud also running West, consider a triangle to ~Wattonish and back to field, notice mammatus in this line, decide to head for Snetterton in the sun.

Sea Breeze now Wymondham way, moving fast. consider 20:1 slope. On the bar to Snetterton. Watch parachutes deploy over Old Buck, 2 light aircraft fly by a few 100 ft away, watch a sailplane cover 20km whilst I cover maybe 2km. Feeling low, Heading for Poultry sheds in sun, old Hangers nearby, and easy landing, but need to take care, don't wish to spook drivers on A11, (500ft rule,) or those racing at Snetterton, work a bullet/plume, not tight enough!

Land Snetterton entrance,1000m+ clear of 'crowd' lots of flags to show wind directon, which are differing, its switching about alot! Prepare for fast landing, well timmed flare, run it off all the same.

Trip 73.99km-- flattering isn't it, 37km FIA 5 point. 26.6km point to point. 2 hours 46 min flight time. Do better next time. Good fun!

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By Russell Briggs

Last saturday I finally managed my first cross country flight and it was fantastic! :)

Jon Wood Jr and myself were the firt pilots to take off on the east-west runway, and we seemed to have picked the ideal time to do it as we both found ourselves in lift pretty much straigt away.

I noticed as I was going up on the tow a couple of large cloud shadows moving over the field where it had been sunny for quite a while before so my theory is these are what triggered our thermals.

The thermal I was in was pretty stonking - the vario was making some very positive noises :) I was able to circle quite widely in the lift to get a feel for it's shape, which didn't seem to be very consistent. I found what sounded and felt like the best area of lift and tightened up my turn a bit and managed to get fairly constant tone from the vario. I was going up! with no line attached!! :)

The wind was fairly strong and by the time I got to around 2,000 ft I was almost level with the start of the old airstrip to the east of the field. At this point I figured I had little chance of getting back to the field so time for an XC attempt :)

At about 2,500 ft the lift seemed to fizzle out. I had noticed there was no cloud above me, so I had a look around to decide what to do. Saw a nice looking grey flat-bottomed cloud directly downwind of me towards dereham, and in my excitement and inexperience, decided to floor it! Full speed bar towards what I hoped would be the next good climb.

Due to my excessive speed bar useage I was down to under 1,000 ft under the cloud but luckily I managed to connect with another decent climb, and this one took me to just below cloudbase! I managed to get the the area of constant lift under this big grey cloud which was a very cool feeling!

I didn't fancy getting sucked up into the cloud so I pointed downwind and applied full speedbar and was still going up! The cloud extended quite a way downwind so I must have been a few hundred feet below it, as I managed to pootle along beneath it without going in and having to use bigears.

By the time I reached the edge of the cloud, I was just north of East Dereham. I decided to continue downwind on a glide with no particular thermal source in mind, just wanted to have a look. Flew over Dereham football club and felt a few blips which I circled in but didn't really get anywhere, I then pushed on over the A47 to have a look but again didn't get anything.

By this point I was down to about 1,200ft and decided I wanted to give myself plenty of time to set up a good landing. Had a look around for suitable fields. The first ones I picked I actually glided over easily so decided to push on. Its great how far these bedsheets on strings go!!

Decided on a nice big field next to the B1110 with a long east-west run and no trees or telegraph poles in the middle. Flew over it downwind for a final check, then turned into wind for a nice gentle glide in and land. 13.5km flown in 36 mins. Fantastic! :)

Lessons Learned:

• Be prepared on every flight! - I had not bothered putting on my flying suit as I wasn't expecting to get away. It was a bit chilly in the shadow under that cloud!
• I had not put any water bottles or food in my harness or flight deck for the same reason. (they were sitting in a carrier bag on the runway in fransham. useless!) Fortunately Mark was kind enough to pick me up quite quickly so was not a problem!
• Make sure you have the phone numbers of at least two or three members of the club at the airfield that day, so you can arrange a retrieve if necessary! Mark R was the only pilot at the field who's number I had, and he was flying when I landed so couldn't reach him.
• Brush up on Speed-to-Fly!!
• XC is not that scary! and is a massivley rewarding experience! You just need to make sure you are well prepared and are fully aware of the hazards to watch out for, both in the sky and on the ground!

Roll on the next XC! :)

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By John Wood Snr

I have been the social secretary for Norfolk,Hangliding & Paragliding Club www.flynorfolk.org since last year & was asked to arrange an SIV course for the club. So i arranged a trip to Oludeniz in Turkey to do the course with Jocky Sanderson, 9 pilots wanted to do the course, including 4 wessex members ( James Martin, Paul Ebert, Mark Fisher & myself ) we had a mixed group of pilots, some with many hundreds of hours & 2 that were just about CP rated.

We flew from Gatwick airport to Dalaman on monday 20th April & arrived at Oludeniz about 10.30pm ready for the next day, we stayed at the Flying Dutchman hotel which was very comfortable with friendly staff & good food.

We started our SIV training in the morning with a brief by Jocky & a stroll to the beach to check out our landing area on the sea front. Then it was all abourd the 4x4 truck for the hour drive up to mount Baberghdag T/O to set up for our first manoeuvers. the Wessex four had flown here last year & had a great time (with gary Pocock) but the take off can be a little unerving at first being approx a mile high & a steep loose gravel launch.

Launching 10mins apart to allow time for Jocky to talk us through our tasks from a safety boat close to Ulodeniz beach, we all got off ok. with 9 pilots it took over 90mins to get us all off.

Our first manoeuvers were "B" line stalls etc ending with wing overs, then over to the beach to set up for landing. this was the basis for the weeks course, which included asymetric tucks, symetric tucks with & without speed bar, big bigears, spiral dives, stalls & parachutall stalls & spins. most of us even did SAT's on our last day of SIV, putting huge grins on our faces after landing & plenty of back slapping.

the last two days were spent doing XC's in marginal conditions over Babergdag then to cave mountain & on the last day to butterfly valley.

We all had a great time & made some good friends, also we learnt to trust our wings in tricky & demanding situations when pilot input is crucial. well worth doing!

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