A foggy start, which quickly burnt off, then a blue morning waiting for it to pop in the hot and sticky atmosphere that didn't inspire you to fly. Mick flew with new member Alan in th G109 and later provided aerotows. In the end only Jenny and I launched. Taking off later than originally planned (just after 2pm due to an unforseen fettling requirement) and realising I'd have to make a long final glide from inland, I abandoned my original task of CAX O/R (180km) in favour of following the weather and getting the best out of the next 2 hours.
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As we launched the sea air was moving in fast and after a climb under the Cu on the sea breeze I reached the lowering cloudbase of only around 2800ft and had incredibly bugged up wings after only 10 mins! Cloudbase was higher at Diss and I climbed to over 4000ft with the extaordinary sight of a Cu forming below me as well as above as the sea air leaked in under me. I knew staying local would mean a short-live flight so I ran SW along the edge of the sea air and got my best climb with a buzzard near Great Ashfield - 6kts average to over 5000ft. From here I rounded RAT and set off west, turning NMT before setting off back towards ROU - it was relatively easy in the 'good air' further inland. Rougham TP provided another good climb (my last), and I needed a good one for the 35km final glide was into the dead sea air. In the end the day took a long time to really get going, and it was not as good as I'd hoped, but certainly worth flying. If I'd launched an hour earlier I reckon around 200km could have been achieved.
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