[paul w]

Cool, I see parking on Castle Hill (there's a chap with a glider on Google maps ) and then walk which way? East or West or drive in to the circular car park off the A249?

Head west Monz, Gary's site gives plenty of good info.

The lane side parking (Castle Hill as seen on Google maps) is fine so long as you tuck in tight.

[GP]

Yes indeed - for Thurnham, you would head east on the M26 and M20 (as I do, I live near Croydon) to the postcode Paul gives, and then up the lane and park on the side of the lane, then walk left/west a hundred yards to the slope.

The directions given on the Slopehunter website are for people coming down the A249 from north London. But the entrance to the country park is not accessible from the south, so for us it is better to go to the postcode Paul gives, rather than parking in the country park.

[GP]

For Allen, here is the Fox landing at Bopeep Hill the other day:

[Monz]

Monz, have you seen the Slopehunter website - that tells you where the slopes are:

www.slopehunter.co.uk

It's a brave person who maidens a plane like that at Colley Hill, well done.

Cheers for that GP 

Might be back at Colley on Saturday with the Bucc looking at the forecast...

[Monz]

Yes indeed - for Thurnham, you would head east on the M26 and M20 (as I do, I live near Croydon) to the postcode Paul gives, and then up the lane and park on the side of the lane, then walk left/west a hundred yards to the slope.

The directions given on the Slopehunter website are for people coming down the A249 from north London. But the entrance to the country park is not accessible from the south, so for us it is better to go to the postcode Paul gives, rather than parking in the country park.

(Attachment Link)

Cool, thanks again. See, it's these little bits of info that help a navigationally inept person like me!

[Allen the soarer]

For Allen, here is the Fox landing at Bopeep Hill the other day:

Wow you did not miss a shot 

[GP]

Really enjoyed Bopeep today (note to self: stop taking launch shots, they all look the same, you need to move on).

[GP]

In order to move on from launch shots, for the next two years I will photograph nothing but walking shots.

[mark_snipz]

Over trousers...cold then?!

[GP]

No, they're just handy for hiding the stains.

[paul w]

Over trousers...cold then?!

Was a bit chilly! Thanks to Gary for inspiring us to take a stroll in the direction of Firle....we'll have to do it en-masse in better weather!

[GP]

Definitely.  We'll have to do the whole way from Bopeep to Firle (which is only 1.8 miles, a 30 minute stroll). I guess a NNE wind would be ideal.  A couple of us could park at Firle and a couple of us at Bopeep, for those who didn't want to walk both ways.

[EricF]

Thurnham Massive Jolly Boys Day out to Bopeep

Loaded or what!
Herein lies a Big Fox, Valenta Salto, ASW27, Race M, ASH26, Valenta Storm, Big Fox trolley plus all the paraphernalia needed for a day's flying on the South Downs . . . and three pilots!



Ready for the off!




Surveying the scene prior to committing the Big Fox to the north easterly breeze.



Look out behind you, the Germans are coming over the hill!
Don't . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . !

They were a nice bunch of blokes (herrs?) who rocked up on the slope to practice for the big F3F meeting to be held somewhere on the South Downs next weekend. They told us quite a bit about slope soaring in Germany and it made us realise how lucky we are with our sloping facilities in the UK.



Mr Goodwind hard at work getting content for his website.




A grand day out, the only damage between us was one stripped aileron servo gear on the Big Fox.
It was cold towards the end and so we were glad we had ski jackets, salopettes and long johns at our disposal.
Now could we remember how to get everything back into the Glidermobile - luckily photo 1 was available on my phone!!

In order to move on from launch shots, for the next two years I will photograph nothing but walking shots.

I think I need to stop taking launch photos as well.
(My excuse is that the camera on my new phone takes about one second to operate the shutter!)



Here's the one before when Paul wasn't moving and just about to heave Simon's Big Fox into the air.



. . . and here's one of Gary, walking back to the pits after another successful flight of the Duo Discus.

[mark_snipz]

In the loaded car pic Eric, whats the model with the silver nose cone underneath Pauls' RaceM?! 
 

[EricF]

It's Simon's latest project, a sleek Thermos flask fully loaded with coffee!

[swarrans]

Mark and I maidened his lovely new ASG29 6m glider yesterday at Bopeep in rather low lift conditions.  He did a great job even though it looked like he was going to have to land out on two ocassions - milking the lift and getting back up to safety.

Not the most comfortable maiden but a great testament to glider and pilot in sinky conditions!

Si

[Rob Thomson]

I was wondering how you guys got on with the wind.

It was VERY thermic!  And damn near no wind!

I got 3 hours of good flat field thermal flying in

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[EricF]

Anyone up for doing a cross country along the cliffs between Dover and Folkestone tomorrow - conditions look perfect for it?   
The cliffs are about 500ft high so the lift will be stupendous.

I'm going to check out the route out late this afternoon to see which would be the best section to try out first.

[paul w]

Anyone up for doing a cross country along the cliffs between Dover and Folkestone tomorrow - conditions look perfect for it?   
The cliffs are about 500ft high so the lift will be stupendous.

I'm going to check out the route out late this afternoon to see which would be the best section to try out first.

I will be in DIY mode unfortunately  ....next time hopefully. Great photos from Friday Eric!....congrats on the maiden Mark, was the hill busy yesterday?

[mark_snipz]

Mark and I maidened his lovely new ASG29 6m glider yesterday at Bopeep in rather low lift conditions.

Many thanks again Si for the launch. Conditions were far from ideal but it had to be done, luckily the CofG was spot on and it only needed a smidgen of elevator trim. Not having programmed in aileron diff made for awful adverse yaw thus needing lots of rudder to compensate, not idea when I was milking the thermals for the barest of lift just to get her back to slope level!

It took about an hour after landing for my pulse rate to return to normal.

The rest of the day was uneventful, the slope breeze stopped all together so I broke out my little DG600 and just thermalled up and down...the German chaps were struggling with their F3F machines but the DG coped brilliantly. Sea breeze changed wind direction completely by 2pm so I had a sleep and sunburnt my face instead...

[GP]

Today I popped over to Colley Hill for a spur-of-the-moment fly with the family, and I met a flyer called Kelvin who had been with you yesterday when you flew at Bopeep.  He was very impressed with the ASG29.

[GP]

I tried taking photos myself while flying - remarkably unsuccessful.  But I thought I'd post this shot because I can't figure out what I'm sharing airspace with.  A bee the size of a pigeon?

[Rob Thomson]

What model is that?

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[GP]

A Pulsar 4 metre.

[nyeregis]

Eric, I will be on for the coastal tour tomorrow.  Where & when?

Tony

[EricF]

I will be in DIY mode unfortunately  ....next time hopefully. Great photos from Friday Eric!....congrats on the maiden Mark, was the hill busy yesterday?

Thanks for letting me know Paul.

My trip to Heathrow took longer than expected so rather than carry on down to Dover to do the recce for tomorrow's adventure, I called in to Holly Hill and had an hour of Billy-No-Mates flying in some lovely thermally conditions,

I'll go down to the coast tomorrow morning and will chuck off from the 500ft high viewpoint opposite the Capel Court Caravan Park at Capel-Le-Ferne and head towards Dover along the coastal path, hoping to get to the cliffs above Samphire Hoe - and then I'll have to walk back again! I've done it a couple of times on my bike but not walking so it will be a different experience this time.
It's about 2 miles each way so it's a reasonable goal to start with. 

PS - I'll try and get some photos of my model along the way Gary, making sure that I don't get too close to the cliff edge in the process. 

[EricF]

Eric, I will be on for the coastal tour tomorrow.  Where & when?

Tony

Hi Tony,
Thanks for your reply.

As you can see from the posting I've just made, I hopefully intend to start from the viewpoint opposite Capel Court Caravan park and I was thinking of getting there at about 10am, but that can be varied. If you look on Streetmap you'll see it marked.

I see that Ian and Bob are also lurking, are you guys thinking of joining the ramble along the clifftops as well?

[GP]

I'd love to come another time, but I can't make it tomorrow. Have a good one.

[EricF]

Thanks Gary, we'll be the pathfinders for this one! It would be a fair trek for you but I'm sure you'll enjoy when you can get along.

[nyeregis]

Hello Eric,

  I occasionally fly from Abbots Cliff, easily accessed from the 1st laybye west of Dover,  the landing area is wide & open.  Perhaps I will see you half way!

Tony

[nyeregis]

I will be on 2.4Ghz!!

[EricF]

I'll go from Abbots Cliff then Tony - see you there. I'll be on 2.4 as well.

PS - for anyone else watching, I had the viewpoint location wrong; it's not by the Capel Court Caravan park, It's opposite the Varne Ridge Park on the Old Dover Road.

[KeithB]

So how did your cross country go then? Did you get caught up in the traffic for Lydden Hill?

[EricF]

A very good day Keith. I listened to BBC Radio Kent and my satnav for the traffic reports and turned off the A2 onto the road to Folkestone by Barham Crematorium for a quiet drive to Hawkinge, then Dover. As I crossed over the A2 I could see the stationary traffic about 1/2 mile ahead stopped by the Womenswold turning. The traffic was having to go right down to the Whitfield roundabout and then turn around to get into Lydden Circuit - a 6 or 7 mile queue to sit in. Lots of boy racers in their hot hatches came to a screaming halt.

Met up with Tony and Peter for a fly adjacent to the lay-by he mentioned, but they had to leave after 30 minutes and so I walked from there towards Dover and flew on the cliffs above Samphire Hoe. Surprisingly the lift wasn't very brilliant especially if I took the model more than 50 metres or so away from the cliff. I found that it was best to sit the model just over the lip of the cliff edge where there was reliable slope lift. It certainly took some effort and will to chuck a nice model off a rather steep 500 ft high cliff towards France over the sea!

There were a lot of trail bikes using a piece of land nearby, so to get away from the noise I moved up to the view point opposite the Varne Ridge Residential Park on the Old Dover Road. There were three paragliderists there waiting for the conditions to improve. They weren't happy as a sort of inversion seemed to be in place which they said is a feature that occurs there when there is a high pressure area in the weather system and there is a southerly blow. The conditions that existed were something like those that GP recently said sometimes exist at Beachy Head.

I then decided to check out the cliff top path from the top of Dover Hill to The Battle of Britain Memorial site and that is do-able, although the next section to the cliff top cafe is decidedly tricky. I spotted one of the paragliders in the air so went back to the view point to chat to them again and they said that conditions had improved. However I then decided to walk, not fly, along the cliff edge path from the viewpoint towards Dover. It is certainly do-able but there are some sections of the path that are right on the edge of vertiginous drops, so a model that you can 'park' while you look where you walk would certainly make life a lot easier. I went about about a mile along the cliff top until I reached the 2nd World War sound dish and was clear of the tricky bits; reasonably flat terrain could then be seen towards Samphire Hoe. By then the wind had changed to southwest and I so on my return to the viewpoint I chucked off a little SW facing promontory but that didn't work so I did a quick dash back to the cliff top and moved over to Crete Road West where I had 30 minutes flying on my own.

Later I'll post some of the photos I took during the day showing some of the interesting features that need to be negotiated going from the Varne Ridge viewpoint to Samphire |Hoe. Should be fun!

[GP]

Interesting ... it sounds a bit too tricky for me!

[EricF]

No problem for a man of your abilities Gary!  . . . although I think your Pulsar 4 metre would be the model to use - built in safety factor makes the heart beat less fast!

[KeithB]

Eric, seems like you had a good day anyway. I will have to try X country one day.

All the best
Keith

[EricF]

A good one to start with Keith, would be along the south facing ridge above the Channel Tunnel terminal. Launching off from the Country Park above Peene village and flying along to the slope soaring site at Crete Road West is just over one mile. The North Downs Way runs along the top of the ridge for the whole length and there is only one slightly tricky very short section halfway along where the North Downs Way crosses the adjacent lane. Try it, it's quite a do-able challenge.


The Capel to Samphire Hoe coastal path is not one to do for your first cross country! 
Here's a few photos from my recce yesterday - click on the pictures to see the full image as they are slightly cropped by the website software.

Launch from here opposite the Varne Ridge Park or you could go 1/2 mile further west and launch from the cliff top cafe terrace or their car park if you fancy wowing an audience!


Negotiate some tunnels through bushes




A taste of things to come!


Don't look down!




A clear run to Samphire Hoe


View from the sound mirror back towards Folkestone

[RobtArm]

The tunnels look scary. How do you keep track of the glider?

I have been told that 2.4 is vulnerable to 'line of sight' issues. Had a problem myself with an aircraft on the other side of a line of trees, though still visible. Could easily have been thumbs though. Presumably you don't have a problem with the tunnels..

[Rob Thomson]

The receiver would just failsafe, then rebind.

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