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Sunday 16th July

Another typical summer’s day in prospect – well, “typical” for this year in that it looked nothing special.  Maybe there are those who would consider a cloud base of less than 2,000′ and a 90 degree crosswind “special”.  Despite this the LS-3, LS-7 and Janus syndicates rigged their gliders.  Maybe it’s a case of “any day we are able to fly this year is a bonus”.  The Duo Discuss took their trailer on an outing to the rigging area and back to it’s parking spot.

There was some week lift but with launches of only around 1,000′ there wasn’t much time off the launch to start climbing  and drifting rapidly downwind.  For a while (until 2pm-ish) it looked like my 13 minute scrape had set the target no one could get near.  Then Chris B, in his LS-7, broke the spell and several flights bettered it.  Of note was a 34 minuter from Tony P and Peter E but Richard D upset Tony by stealing his crown by a whole 2 minutes.  Peter E was kept busy with lots of trial lessons but still managed to fit in a stint doing winch training and demonstrate, as requested, a creative launch failure on Alan S.  It certainly entertained me but Alan didn’t seem as appreciative and said that my singing from the back seat did not help (Monty Python’s “Always look on the bright side”)

As the afternoon wore on the sky improved, although no let-up in the cross wind.  The time we were launching our last few flights was the time we should have started flying as Colin B demonstrated by disappearing off in EEF for just over an hour (returning, I suspect, only to ensure there would be help to derig).

Best part of the day after we had put the toys away
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Wednesday 13th July

The day started looking decidedly underwhelming and the prospect of bands of rain passing through in the afternoon.  Second launch with Bill C in the K8 staying aloft for 22 minutes raised hopes that were soon dashed as all other flights were circuits – that is, until 14:00.  Alan S, in the Puchacz, demonstrated the tenacity needed to scrape away in week lift and marked the thermal for Rod H and Gillian B in the K7 – who, in turn marked it for Peter E with new member (joined that day) Martin S.  Each of those flights getting about half an hour.  Then the rain arrived but, fortunately, soon passed.  After the rain is was back to circuits until shortly before the next band of rain when the last 3 flights at least got into the double digits.
For the second week, Rod & Gillian were top guns with 33minutes and a climb to 3,200′.  Just in case anyone is concerned that it’s only certain folks who get mentions in the blog (as if) it should be noted that Paul P flew the most types of gliders on the day.