With Saturday being a reasonable day sandwiched between very wet days (and the weekend being declared a 1 day weekend) we’d expected a good turnout. We did have a strong turnout of TL’s but a modest one of club members. Low cloudbase limited flight times with Paul Prentice taking the honours of longest and second longest flights (10 and 11 minutes). A record held until after 15:00 when Steve Barber jumped in the K8 after his marathon session on the winch and he soared away for a whole 17 minutes. No one else was able to crack the 10 minute barrier. 30 launches in total with TL’s accounting for a dozen of those and annual checks for another 7.
Thursday 30th – 100 year old birthday boy takes to the skies!
Wednesday slipped a day this week because of the somewhat wet real Wednesday. I was able to take my neighbour for a Trial Lesson for his birthday – his 100th birthday! Not only his first flight in a glider but his first in any sort of small aircraft (30 seater being the smallest aircraft flown in previously). Many thanks to Rob, Paul, Peter, Alan B and Chris K for turning out to make the day possible (with Colin and James in reserve but working on things to keep us flying).
After our visitor (and his family, friends and photogaphers from the Newbury Weekly News) departed there was a hottly contested “keepie-up” challenge. With not much more than a 1,000 cloud base (occasional gaps to sneak through) the benchmark was set at a whole 8 minutes. This stepped up in 2 minute increments, topping out at 18 minutes
Sunday 26th – Ridge day!
The few that turned up enjoyed playing on the ridge trying to distinguish between ridge and thermal lift. It was good to welcome a former member who was getting to grips with winch launching. Between the few of us and a couple of TL’s we manged to get 16 launches out of the day.
Sat 25th September
Well its Autumn. But that ment we all enjoyed the Autumn thermals. The northly wind teased on the ridge but it was the thermals that kept most aloft with flights of 20mins to 3hours.