Author: Blogger

Just goes to show that it happens to the best of us.

After a quick (in more ways than one!) aerotow we were soon on our way back to Rivar.

What is it about the 14th? May 14th was good, though most of us failed to see it coming. June was brilliant, see a previous blog item. July 14th was brilliant too. EVERY launch led to a soaring flight (OK apart from the check flights). Richard Barber got his 5hrs, Steve Barber (no relation) went round the Salisbury Plain danger areas and had time and inclination to top it up to 225km by also visiting Lasham and Didcot. Chris went up country but was snookered by the cloud spilling over from the Low in the North Sea, so came home again, and the Janus made a pitstop at Bicester. We also had an unscheduled pitstop by a Dunstable visitor whose turbo wouldn’t start – he got it fixed and took a relight to motor back home. Other folks enjoyed local(ish) soaring, for several hours in several cases. Total time 44hrs off 26 launches, average flight 1hr 45min (excluding the short check flights)

We took the Puchacz to Newbury Carnival to tell the folks of Newbury what we do and and where we are. they certainly kept us busy. Surely some will come and give gliding a go for themselves.

Today followed the recent theme, blue skies at breakfast, lovely fluffy clouds at elevenses and 8/8 overcast at lunch. Whilst we had our elevenses the thermals were good and strong, but by lunchtime we were all descending back to earth. The billion trillion zillions of flies that committed suicide on my leading edge surely didn’t help!

Oh and the rope – well following a cable break the end of the cable managed to hide itself within the cable on the drum, all you could see was good cable but no end! A dozen minutes of searching seamed to be of no avail but finally Ken Reid uplooped enough wire to find the pesky little end,