Author: Blogger

The day started off quite sunny but soon after we got the field set up and the toys were out it clouded over and threatened to rain 🙁

After some discussion about how high (low) cloudbase was a quick lob to find out was in order and with no willing volunteer available I made John Scott sit in the front of JPC.

Most, including me, thought it to be about 600 ft so we were all surprised when it turned out to be 1100 ft! But this was to be short lived as by scraping the bottom of the cloud we made it leak which made us stop for a bit.

Our resident Met man assured us that by 2pm it would clear and as we had an afternoon of trial lessons booked we decamped to Rods camper for a chin wag.

Sure enough at the appointed time the drizzle stopped and soon many club gliders were being launched into a clearing and surprisingly thermic sky.

The people who had won flights from the Pewsey Carnival along with the group from Newbury had a very enjoyable afternoon flying which kept all three 2 seaters busy. With a northerly breeze launch heights were quite reasonable and extended flights were possible. I think by 6pm we had flown about 18 TL’s and also got in a fair bit of club flying.

Thanks to Steve Ottner and Pete Ellison for helping me with the flying, Rod and Steve B for taking turns driving the winch and to everyone else who made the afternoon’s flying possible.

Now who was it that managed to get the longest flight of the day with 27 minutes in the K8?…………..no can’t remember 🙂

Phil

Having half unpacked the hangar, observed the gathering orographic clag and decided that despite all the enthusiasm the weather wasn’t going to play ball, we reluctantly put the toys away. Undeterred, Ken Hansell turned his hand to fixing a starting problem on the new Trooper. It took a mere ten minutes to change the battery and only another half an hour dismantling the bodywork to retrieve a lost socket.

Meanwhile a small group had gathered around half a ton of assorted metal artefacts in the hangar. Following much heaving, head scratching and moments of pure enlightenment and having deciding it could never be made to fly, there finally emerged a gantry crane.

Break for lunch.

Someone muses ‘something’s wrong, Colin normally has some jobs for us’. Reflective pause… Steve Barber mutters something about taking the kitchen equipment out of the bus. Next thing we know cookers, microwave ovens, toasters and stainless steel units are moving in all directions. Meanwhile Paul Bryant demonstrates his macramé skills morphing a plastic dustbin and a 25 litre tub into a hoist cosy while Steve Barber waves a multimeter threateningly at the solar battery charger which seems to be all Amps and no Volts.

Not bad for a no-fly day. Rain stopped play at 15:00 hrs.

Evening all, what a nice day’s flying we’ve had today. We started slightly later than ideal after a certain person who shall remain nameless drank from the Great Fir Cup and then had to call all hands for some time to convert the macrame back into launch cable. But hey, it can happen to anyone, even the CFI…(oops!) The time was not lost though as recent recruits (well, both since I went off on my summer overseas jaunting) Justin and Tony amongst others learnt their way around the half-mil map along with some basics on navigation. And indeed once we launched, Justin’s soaring skills meant we were able to test his navigational learning with a trip partway to Membury…and…squeak..back again. Most of the showers missed us, all pilots present flew until they were flown out and then we popped them back in the hangar and pootled home. Result!

When the day starts like this:

You might expect this:

But maybe not this:

Pseudo sea Breeze Front/Convergence over Newbury.

It was lonely up there – where wus you all?