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Saturday 11th October

Cloudbase on Saturday was initially a bit low and with the forecast of rain by mid afternoon many thought we were a bit daft to rig the Janus.

We took our first launch just as what appeared to be an very low but active street was passing diagonally over the winch and released along the downwind edge of it at around 1400ft. With one wing tip in the side of the cloud we cruised up and down the street in zero until eventually we hit sink and had to land but not until we had clocked up around 13 minutes.

Our second flight was a lot shorter as we had to abort the launch due to low cloud.

But our Third flight was a bit different……………

Cloudbase was starting to rise and soon after release we contacted a thermal which after some serious scratching took us to cloudbase at around 1500ft.

 During the flight Cloudbase rose significantly and the lift became more predictable meaning we could take in Andover and Newbury even reaching the dizzy heights of 3,000ft! During the flight we noticed a cloud street has set up over the hill to the south of the airfield and by flying along underneath it climbed without turning with 4.8kts showing on the averager travelling a distance of some 5k towards Thruxton.

It just goes to show that even in October conditions can be far better than forecasted and both of us were quite pleased with our 2hrs 20mins 🙂

Phil

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Wednesday 15th

The low cloud failed to lift before the rain arrived – at 14:00 exactly on the time forecast.  The few of us there helped Colin get the reserve winch back online and both winches under the shelter.  This involved returning the old hoist to Dingly Dell (apparently from where we originally acquired it).  This involved towing it with ballast over the rear wheels to reduce the chances of it tipping over.

Multi-tasking: driving and posing

More Multi-tasking: Driving and taking a picture
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Sunday Extra

Here’s the evidence of being above the cloud and the fog in the distance.

There was a lot of circuit bashing with no one breaking into double digit flying time until launch 25 (4 hours after the first launch) when Selvam clocked up 13 minutes.  Couple of launches later Rod matched it and a couple of launches after that Trevor squeezed an additional 2 minutes from somewhere.

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Sunday 12th October

As often happens when fog fills the valleys, Rivar Hill kept its head above the clouds. The sun never quite broke through but visibility was ‘CAVOK’ with inbound Heathrow traffic in clear view below featureless top cover. Despite early canopy misting and Alan P’s best efforts to obscure the entire airfield with bonfire smog, flying commenced in the late a.m.
The airfield had been well attended from an early hour, but the absence of a duty team presented Richard D with the unenviable challenge of running it with little experienced backup. So, resourceful as ever, RD sends an SOS to Stephen O who then conjures up the requisite crew in short order. And so it came to pass that electronic jungle drums brought forth a surfeit of helpers, with four instructors ensuring that everyone who needed back seat assistance got it with a minimum of delay. Even so, steady demand kept three two-seaters busy until late afternoon.
It started to rain as the hangar curtains were drawn. Thanks to everyone who answered the call.