Category: Flying Reports

Just to show that the weather doesn’t always take note of the forecast! I must admit that on Saturday night I felt that flying yesterday would be “interesting” for the wrong reasons but it turned out to be the exact opposite.

It was quite gusty when I left Andover at 8:30 but an hour later at Keevil the gusts had subsided sufficiently enough to make flying JMX a reasonable decision, in fact later on Keevil brought their own K13 out to play as Graham mentioned.

With Carol side-lined with a chest infection it was left to Chris and I to enjoy the delights of ridge flying the Janus. First flight lasted just over the hour and the second a very enjoyable 1:35. With ridge and thermal lift available we climbed to 2400ft and explored the ridge in both directions for many kms.

Jim and Nigel made good use of JMX on the ridge and needed most of their 1200ft height to push into the 18 knot headwind to get back to the airfield.

Though I think Graham may have wished he had a bit more height in reserve when it came to his turn in the Bannerdown K13!

Here is a view low down on “Smokey Joe” (Westbury Chimney). My phone’s camera makes the chimney seem further away than it really was.

With a moderate NW wind Carol and I went off to fly the ridge near Westbury.

Following a 1500ft winch launch we set off on track just to one side of Westbury Chimney for the White Horse some 7km away reaching it at around 1000ft.

A few beats up and down the ridge line we were up at 1700ft


We left the ridge at around 1000ft and landed back at Keevil clocking up just over an hour in the air.

Later on Chris and I took an aerotow back to the ridge.

But by this time the wind had dropped and the ridge wasn’t working so we flew around for a bit before returning to the airfield.

Yet another cracking day at Keevil, looks like this weekend will be good for the ridge as well, see you there  🙂

Phil

Today was the first day that we flew JMX at Keevil and as we arrived the sleet we had driven through stopped and we were left with glorious sunshine.

Keevil are keen that we help out at the launch point and a number of us were taught how to drive the retrieve winch.

Driving this is quite straightforward but it does take a little practise to get it just right as there are no brakes on the drum you have to rely on the winch driver  applying sufficient braking force from his end. Nigel was going to get cleared to drive their Skylaunch but as the tug was brought out we took an aerotow instead.

This is Steve Ottner about to take a solo.

As take offs and landings are from the tarmac runway it is important to move gliders out of the way as soon they come to a stop.

By the end of flying we clocked up numerous winch launches and about 10 aerotows, Nigel got himself cleared for aerotowing and aerotow checks were done for Steve Barber and James Waters. Andrew Peacock, Roland Pantling and Tony Palmer also had aerotow flights and seemed to enjoy them.

Must admit the retrieve winch sure speeds up the launch rate!

All in all a good day was had by all and thanks to all at Keevil for making us welcome.

Phil