Category: Flying Reports

Back to “normal” – tricky westerly.  It was a day of two, contrasting, halves.  8/8 cloud cover in the morning with cloud base varying between just above launch height and just below.  Peter E was kept busy flying a group of overseas students who looked as if they were thoroughly enjoying the experience.  I worked my way through the club members list until I got to Alan S at which point I woke Richard D up and suggested he might like to do off checks with Alan.  They went off and looked as if they were having fun (well, at least Richard was).  That left a K13 and a cable and no one clambering to fly so I felt obliged to see if I could still remember how to fly solo.  When planning my circuit I observed Alan and Richard in a “interesting” position and decided to re-plan my circuit to follow suit and land reciprocal.  Apparently on coming to a halt on landing they were startled by the Flarm making lots of noise and flashing red lights with no glider in sight. Then Alan noticed the encroaching glider was below them which, for a moment, increased the puzzlement.
From about 14:00 the clouds parted, sun reached the ground and we got to soar to over 3,000′.  Congratulations to Alan on completing his off-check checks.

I guess most members had looked at the forecast winds and gave it a miss.  Members were pretty thin on the ground but the TLs just kept coming.  There was a host of Sparrows – including the brave one in the cover photo sporting provocative clothing.

Yet another westerly but a bit more lively (i.e. gusty) than usual.  After the 7th launch Liz (DI for the day) returned recommending a lunch break until things calmed down.  Those who witnessed her arrival said it looked “sporting” and Liz did admit to an involuntary cry of “goodness” on approach (more than once).  Lunch over and no prospect of things getting better (the gusts by now seemed to vary in direction) the toys were put away and most folks left without having got their bum off the ground :(.  Despite that we ended the day with a new junior member – welcome Rory (he was one of the few who did get to fly)

After working out which end to fly from (and it wasn’t the one I chose first, sorry about that) we settled into a good thermic day with good climbs and high cloudbase that tended to infinite in the later afternoon.

Jim flew 300km to Cambridge and back reporting storming conditions in Beds and Cambs but had to change down a few gears to come through the blue. Phil and Carol went up to Cirencester in the Janus but conditions weren’t so good that way.

Back at home Alan found a weighing he was happy with and flew the Skylark, the perfectly proportioned Mini Nimbus rigged as did the LS4, LS3, K6cr and Jantar. The Brind family were flying their new Duo (sorry Ken’s, Julia and Bill if you didn’t know) and the club fleet was well utilised with Martin H re-soloing with a soaring flight after 5 years.