On the day it was sunny a few clouds. The wind on the hill was fairly light 10mph but 30 degs off to South. It was predicted to be blown out by 10:30/11:00 hence early start.
Took off into wind then turned towards glider club. Was sinking out so turned back in the direction of rebellion knoll.
When I was getting level with top of ridge weight shifted and braked left but glider went more right and would not turn away from ridge/wall. I had no deflations but seemed to hit a pocket of strong turbulence caused by vertical rotor.
Be very careful flying at Bradwell if wind is off to the South.
Hi Chris,
Nice one for sharing!
I found the final part of your video interesting as you seem to loose quite a bit of height all of a sudden.
Interested to hear if in hindsight you think there is there anything you could have done to avoid the collision and if you have decided to change anything as a result of your incident?
Hi Ross, No actually I didn't lose any height and it was level flight into the wall. That track was from my Skydrop another track from my kobo shows level flight see here https://ayvri.com/scene/49j7dy46je/cjqxh7x6x00013964wvyevc1k When you look at it bear in mind, it is using altitude from baro reading and QNH is out by about 20', i.e. at take off it shows be about 20' higher and at the point of impact clearing the wall by 20'. The critical point was when I was trying to turn left while level with the hill but still out front, the ground track shows a kick to the right which pointed me towards the wall, there was no wing deflation and the vertical rotor I hit at that point continued to put me into the wall despite all attempts to turn left.
I cringed when I watched Waynes youtube flight a few weeks later. He took off in fairly strong conditions with the wind off further to the South. His first turn mirrored mine although he was probably 20' higher due to the increased wind strength. His second turn was almost the exact spot I tried to turn. My advice would be to avoid turning at that spot in similar conditions as the chance of vertical rotor is significant, worth talking through with new pilots.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh0dTEa8ZK4
Chris