Milk Hill - 21st April 2007

The forecast was for light southerlies for this weekend, veering SSW / SW on Sunday. Having recently joined as a full member of TVHG I set off for Milk Hill in Wiltshire just before 8am on Saturday. I managed to reach Buckingham (fortunately only 8 miles or so from home) only to realise I had forgotten to put my boots into the car with the rest of my kit. A quick return journey back home to pick them up saw me once again heading in the direction of Milk Hill. Arriving at about 10.15am there was only one other car in the car park but it seemed clear that the wind was much stronger than the 8-10mph forecast. A quick check with the wind-o-meter confirmed this with winds averaging around 16mph with frequent gusts up to 20mph!


A day lazing around on the hill chatting to the other pilots followed, all of us hoping that the wind might drop. It probably would have done eventually but with a 2 hour drive ahead of me I wanted to get home at a reasonable time and so left about 3.45pm (still no sign of the wind dropping). A few other pilots had launched earlier but it was just too windy for me to dare give it a go. A few of those who launched managed to get away on an XC, landing north of Marlborough - lucky them. Speaking to one of them back at the car park he said they'd reached 3,000ft altitude. One day hopefully that will be me!