For many years now the thought of crossing the Channel to France has been in my mind. I used to read the stories of 1950s and 1960s crossings in Skylarks, and owning a Skylark 3 myself at the time, and being younger, it all sounded incredibly exciting. While I've moved on to glass now, I still have the Skylark.
Although if conditions are right a Channel crossing is not an especially difficult flight, the organisation and retrieve can be quite a deterrent. I purchased a life jacket last year but that was as far as it went! It was not until Wednesday, May 4, looking at the weather, that I saw brisk northwesterlies forecast with a decent cloudbase the next Friday. I decided I'd give it a go, but began to worry I might miss a good 300 or 500km day. Then I realised what a plonker I was being, thinking like that! The next day, my dad (John Gilbert senior) changed me some Euros and Bob Godden kindly agreed to crew. Having checked French NOTAMs, etc, I got myself rigged, with clothes and toothbrush packed.
By 11.00 the wind looked good for the flight but the sky didn't. It had gone to almost eight-eighths - not at all inspiring - so I drank a few cups of tea in the club¬house, making regular visits to the window to look at an even more dismal sky. But at about 11.45 I decided to make my way to the launchpoint and launch, as one or two people were staying airborne. I declared Abbeville, put on my lifejacket, took a winch launch and found a broken one knot, which slowly got me to 2,500ft above site. I set off downwind to a better-looking cloud and a climb to base at 3,700ft.
Then came the hardest part of the flight: getting to and across the Thames! There appeared to be wave influence, which left a huge dead area on track with the only marginally usable cu being along the coast and a lot of the time over the water all the way to Southend. Near Shoeburyness I seemed to spend forever drifting out over the sea between 1,500ft and 2,000ft in weak climbs, pushing back to the only reachable scrap of Cu and starting all over again.
I even considered turning downwind over the water towards Margate, as there were some better-looking clouds over the water, but a look at the distance on the map soon stopped that silly idea!
Eventually I worked my way to Southend, considering giving up and landing at the airport, but I noticed a marked improvement in Kent, so kept going until I got to 3,000ft and crossed the Thames to Sheerness. Here the going was much easier: I was amazed to find cloudbase at 5,000ft (yippee!). A quick run to Dover, passed my details to London information and set course for Cap Gris Nez - it was then I realised how nervous I was, even though I was easily on glide. This was not helped by the strong sink I hit over the next few miles! I decided to deviate to some ragged cu that had blown out to sea, which produced zero sink and put the glide computer back where it had started.
Mid-Channel I told Lille information I'd almost certainly be landing in a field as the sea air appeared to stretch too far inland. I crossed the coast at around 2,500ft, and felt elated, but the clouds were still miles away. However I headed for a quarry and at about 1,300ft contacted a broken thermal, then another, and eventually got to the decent-looking clouds. After that it was again straightforward flying for the next 80km, slightly inland of track to stay under the clouds on the edge of the sea air. When I arrived at Abbeville and after I closed my flight plan, they invited me to eat (and drink) with them, which was great. Bob and my dad did extremely well and got to me by 12.30. We got back to the club at 7.30am, Bob having heroically done all the driving!
A straight distance of 213km is certainly not one of my longest flights but it's definitely my most memorable, and I've been giving some thought (with a little help from my dad, who seems to enjoy long retrieves!) to trying again, only going a lot further inland...
John, a full-rated instructor, has 1,350hrs gliding and two Diamonds. His longest flight is a 600km.