Author: StephenO

The sky looked promising,

the winch didn’t;

the launch point has a working door

and the bare patch got re-seeded

After the problems with starting the winch on Sunday James H set to and diagnosed the problem and came to the conclusion that not only would it be quicker to replace the engine than repair it but there will probably be damage to the engine that a “quick fix” wouldn’t resolve.  By Wednesday morning the engines had been swapped (with some assistance but I don’t know who to credit).  With assistance from Bill C, Alan P and Andy B the new engine was running.  Still a fair few jobs to complete the task, which are planned for Friday.  A huge, huge “thank you” to James H for bailing us out of what could have been another extended period with out a means to get airborne.

The few other mid-weekers who turned up set-to on other much needed tasks

 

At last the spell unfriendly winds passed and all was calm.  A chance to fly.  Maybe not the most attractive flying conditions but after a period of no flying the inconvenience of a 1,000′ cloud base did not deter the Wednesday crew.  Well, did not deter most, some declined the opportunity of a 3 to 6 minute flight.  There was the opportunity for longer flights for those with the skill (and the luck), such as Bob B who clocked up a whole 8 minutes.  For most one chance to get their bum off the ground was sufficient so we were all packed up quite early, when a few of us took the time to open out and refold the cover for the MT shelter ready for hauling into place (once it can be figured out how/where to attach the ropes).  Edibles courtesy of Stan O and his bargain hunting in Asda.

A week of sunshine and high temperatures weren’t the only records being broken a number of record breaking launch counts were achieved. Sunday the 24th gave us an astonishing 55 launches – most number of launches for a February day (previous best was 47 in 2009). Across the month there were 20 launches (previous best 214 last year). Year-to-date (i.e. from start of October) 1,010 (previous best 991 in 2018). However, when it came to flying time the numbers weren’t far from average (below for the month and above year-to-date). Even with a week of summer into the month didn’t help as the high pressure that planted itself resulted in naff all soaring opportunities. For weekend flyers the month would have felt far from fab – only 3 days flown ( 2 weekends) in the month, while the mid-weekers flew every week (helped one week by “Wednesday” being movable).

For the mid-weekers it seemed that Rob J was the one to beat when it came to soaring. On the 6th his 31 minutes left everyone astonished when the best anyone else could manage was 12 minutes. On the 13th his 13 minutes only made second place to Rowland P’s 21 minutes. On the 21st he was at it again with 38 minutes while only 2 others (out of a total of 26 launches) just crept into double digits. On the 27th Rob’s 17 minutes was no match for Bill C’s 21 minutes. Yet again the most of the rest of us (40 launches in total) failed to make double digits.

We celebrated the last day of “summer” on the 27th in shirt sleeves and beany hats eating Tony P’s home baking plus donuts and sausage rolls (supplied by Stan O).

The day started far from promising with a cloud base that you could poke a stick in to. Well, maybe standing on the top of the hangar with a long stick. This being a Wednesday folks set-to on jobs needing done. Some tweaking of the hangar curtains and dismantling of the old launch point caravan.

As the day progressed, and lunch was eaten, the low cloud base lifted affording a view of smoke pouring from the Ocado warehouse fire at Andover. Mainly circuits of 7 or 8 minutes but 3 folks crept into double digits but the indisputable soaring god of the day was Rob J with 31 minutes. Rob reported never getting back to launch height but managing to maintain between 1,100′ to 1,200′. A modest turnout (maybe others knew that Tony P and cake wouldn’t be there) and a late start (13:50) but we still managed 18 launches.