A steady day with only limited soaring on offer. Rob J set the time to beat on the 4th launch with 21 minutes. That wasn’t beaten until later on with a 36 minute flight by, guess who, yup Rob again. Grabbing as many launches as were on offer was Mark P, returning to the club after his 2+ year “rest”. He hasn’t forgotten how to fly 🙂 Richard (DI thanks to a 2 way swap) was kept occupied with a couple of TLs one of whom was particularly keen, heading off with the plan to buy a book and return in 2 weeks time. 23 launches with a modest 4:13 hours flown.
Spring Sunday (11/3).
Technically spring isn’t for a couple of weeks but anyone who turned out to fly on Sunday was rewarded with another lovely day, warm sunshine and light north westerly winds.
The Skylard, ops sorry Alan, Skylark was stooging about making the most of the weak thermals as was Messrs Keating and Jarvis in the Cirrus, along with the Duo flown by Bill.
Earlier the forecast looked as though we would be getting a potential cross country day but in the end it was only really good enough for some nice extended flights and that good ol’ practise scraping in a weak and broken thermal.
We saw Paragliders by the score who mostly stayed towards the Gibbet, although I was unfortunate enough to have three or four join me on the ridge in front of the club.
sharing a thermal with Chris K and the Puchacz was nice, relaxing and it meant we all stayed airborne a little longer through shared sampling of the air.
A few trial lessons added to the enjoyment as did the cars parked around the field spectating. Hopefully one or two of these will have a go at some time.
Saturday 10th March-spring is sprung?
Despite losing most of the morning waiting for the mist to burn away a great day was eventually had by all.
We made the most of not having any single seaters out and made good use of the Puchacz and K13’s. Not a great day for staying up but many extended soaring flights were there to be had. Alan Pettit in the Skylark clocked up a credible 30 mins or so mostly not above 900ft!
Congratulations to Jon Garner for convincing Carol to sign him “Off Checks”……well done!
Not sure how many flights were flown as I did not see the log but Carol and I were certainly kept busy, what a cracking day!
Phil
Sunday 4 March – planning the perfect soaring season
Well, as expected it was not quite the ideal soaring day today. Indeed when I arrived and unlocked the field gate, I wasn’t sure if I would get up the field , there being quite a lot of surface water around (understatement!!). But get up ok I did, and was sat there planning a flight for myself (Snowdon O/R – my plan for the first nice day this spring – 569K) when fellow E teamer Graham arrived with a Landrover (Chris was away on duty team at his granddaughter’s birthday party). This was a great relief in case of problems going back down the field.
As I said, if we can’t fly we can plan, and Graham and I worked on his training plan so he now has a clearer idea of what progress he can reasonably expect to make through the summer, and how best to twist the arms of the duty instructor to make sure it happens!
For those who are in training, days like these are an excellent opportunity to ask questions that get lost on days when your head is full of flying. Make a list, pin the DI down and get him/her to explain things you’re not sure about. Then you will make the best progress come the flying days.
For those who are post solo but who haven’t yet made the ranks of World Champions, days like these are an excellent opportunity to make a plan for the season.
This morning Graham and I talked through things in 3 headings which you might find useful to make progress:
> badges / distances/measurable achievements – eg I want to do my XC endorsement, get my 5hours, fly my first rated comp, fly faster XC, do my 500k, do over 100hrs flying, become an instructor
> technical – eg I want to get all my post-solo development card items crossed off, improve my circuits, work on speed control in thermals, improve turnpoint technique, learn to fly the energy lines, learn to fly blue conditions
> fun – eg I want to ditch the geezer in the back seat, fly with buzzards, do task week, do someone else’s task week/comp, fly Snowdon O/R, fly a 750km, nab a ride in a hot 2-seater, fly and land somewhere for coffee then fly home.
>>Of course, all three categories overlap!
The other person on the airfield, Graham’s dog Bunny, was to be honest pretty unimpressed with many of my suggestions. In the end she was very glad that Graham finally came to understand that the real purpose of his being there was to take her for a walk. Which he did, just as the rain turned to snow and the field vanished in a blizzard. I slithered gently back down the field to solid tarmac, went home and made soup.