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Bright moment on a dull day

reds

Sitting in my office catching up with boring stuff – heard that familiar whispering roar – looked out of the window – Red Arrows flying past at 500 ft under the overcast in their customary two group transit formation. They banked port simultaneously forming into double ‘vic’ formation and flew off to the south. NOTAM said they were due Reading 11:22, Newbury 11:25, Winchester 11:28. Time was 11:24 UTC … Their watches were probably more accurate than mine.

Now back to the boring stuff.

 

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We’re back!

The rebuilt winch distinguished itself with faultless launches all day and Rodney, doing most of the driving, made sure we all got our money’s worth with most launches on the right side of 1500ft. Private gliders outnumbered club ones by a factor of 2:1, but with only one club glider available that wasn’t much of a superlative. After Jim satisfied himself that the Puchacz was indestructible in all parts of the envelope he and Liz worked hard to ensure we all got airborne.  It was barely soarable, but nonetheless Richard and I clocked up an hour and a half in EEF, even if it did take three launches each.

And Alan P finally joined us at the launch point following an hour’s work rigging the Oly with the aid of a 2lb hammer and cold chisel.  Is there no end to this man’s ingenuity? The sky was cloudless – here’s a picture of Alan’s Oly as it passed me on the ridge.

oly