Blue Wednesday…
Wednesday 18th Blue Soaring
What a difference a day makes…
I had intended to go paragliding on the Friday as it seemed to work better with the kids and summer holidays. But I got stung by a wasp Friday morning and felt rubbish most of the day. My wife suggested I go gliding on the Saturday to make up for my disappointment – every cloud has a silver lining…
Thanks to everyone who made it possible for me to fly on Saturday – to Colin; who despite discovering the Vega trailer was locked and full, suggested I needn’t worry he’d soon have the doors open if they needed to recover me. To Pete; who rebooted the Kobo, programmed my task to Aston Down and in doing so empowered me to have a go. To Chris Keating; who marked my first climb – out flew me, but kept me focused and to Steve Barber; who showed me (from Swindon to Aston Down) that on a day like Saturday, thermalling is optional.
Late finish, Beer, Fish & Chips
The day started with heavy cloud cover, light winds, darkening through the afternoon before eventually opening out into a beautiful, sunny, summers evening. I (Jonty) had rather given up on the idea of completing my 2 hr cross country endorsement flight. But with the K8 siting on launch and a cable ready to go, a sunny hangar flight at 4:45pm seemed like a nice way to end the day. Luck would have it that the Cu’s, we had been observing in the distance, finally reached us. Staying up was a real possibility but surely there wasn’t enough time left in the day?
Well thanks to the patience of ground crew and enthusiasm of those who took to the sky with me. We all flew long into the early evening and I think I may just have made the 2 hrs. Only the logger knows for sure. Thank you to all those who stayed late and allowed it to happen and to Bob for leading me his credit card to buy folks a beer at the Plough afterwards!
STOP PRESS: Sorry everyone apparently I failed by 36 secs according to one of our official observers. His review reads: “I measure the landing at 17:46:14 UTC and release at 15:46:50 UTC so unfortunately, as the requirement is from release, not take off, I have to conclude this is short by 36 seconds. Taken from take-off, the flight would have been exactly 2 hours (within 4 secs).” How gutted do I feel……
Visitors from Lasham
On Wednesday we had a couple of visiting gliders from Lasham. One of them was a DG500 with Jeff Lynes and Simon Holland on-board. They took several attempts to leave but eventually made it back to Lasham.
