Author: Blogger

Yet another windy day but with it being pretty much southerly, no nasty lumpy bits on the approach.  Starting finals from 500′ just the one hedgerow back it was easy to land opposite the launch point!  There were thermals but they were mainly being ripped apart by the wind but there were a few significant climbs reported.  Some weak wave also found.  Chris K reported the highest launch of the day (2,100′ in a K13) and Peter E took the longest flight honours at 16 minutes.  Half the flights managed double digit duration.

On holiday in Kent so snuck off to visit the nearest gliding club.  Warm (for the time of year) sunny day with little prospect of soaring.  No difficulty finding the club and after signing in at the office made my way to the busy launch point.  Despite it being so busy was made welcome – apparently a visitor from another club is something of a novelty.  Had my site check in one off their K21’s and then took to the sky in their Junior on the last launch before the break for lunch (struck me as an odd thing to do).  My reward for flying into the lunch break was some modest soaring – 23 minutes which, I believe, was the longest flight of the day. After lunch out came a T21 which then attrached a queue of people wanting to experience the wind in their face.
Challock has big club facitilies but with the friendliness of a small club.  Not an obvious expedition destination (airspace ceilings, not far from the coast) but well worth a visit if you are in the area.
One final observation – the lauch point organisation was excellent, thanks mainly to the member of the duty team who managed the flying list and kept things moving without delay.

While looking for High Definition videos of gliding I found this on You Tube.
Three questions:
1. What is the pilots START height registered on his altimeter when he begins to cross the lake
2. What does the altimeter read once he’s landed

3. What colour might his underpants be…….

Evening all,

and as I collapse with my sherry after a hard day’s instructing, I look back on the day and it definitely falls into the classification for ‘Nice’. As I drove north out of Andover this morning I came up out of the fog, and, bar a small wadge of cloud that went through around 10-ish, it’s been sunny all day. And thermic.

As you may have seen from this morning’s e-post I was having a bit of a sense of humour failure when I was still on my own at just before 10am. Sunday lie-ins is one thing, but… However a flurry-ette of members arrived just in time to have the field operational in time for our 11am trial lessons.

Cloud was kicking up from first launch, but it took recent solo pilot Graham to prove that it was properly soarable on his 4th solo – Very Well Done Graham!!! While I was checking Graham out, Pete E was giving Andrew, a half-day course pilot, as much flying as could realistically be expected plus a bit, then dealing with our later trial lessons. I then flew with Jim and Evelyn both of whom took advantage of the soaring conditions and made good progress. Meanwhile an old member from the Ralph Jones days came and was escorted down memory lane by Richard.

We finally managed to wrest the K8 off Rod at the end of the day when the thermals wore out, at which point, much to his surprise, I stuck Graham into the K8 for a very nicely flown conversion flight. As you can see from his expression, I’m not sure whether he really liked it… Again, well done Graham!

Nuff said,

Liz