Windy and Chilli (11 July 2015)

A very changeable day: there was a strong west wind of the sort that gives a tailwind no matter which end of the field you set up on and strangely one that didn’t increase with height much. It made for very broken thermals and getting away was a challenge. Certainly having got away you wanted to stay high.

I went for a cruise in the Nimbo GT and spied with my little eye something beginning with ‘nice farmer man or woman driving a big shiny combine harvester machine and making lovely impromptu airfields out of England’s green and pleasant land… ’ near Devizes.

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After the flying fun we retired to the club house for the Chilli evening where I think I managed not to poison anyone and Tony P also brought along gorgeous salad from his allotment and Chocolate Brownies which went perfectly with Trevor’s fresh picked raspberries.

I cooked up a hot version this morning with the extras I’d bought.

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Saturday 4th April -Ridge day!

As Colin predicted Saturday indeed turned out to be a ridge day and many ridge flights were flown.

With the good headwind launch heights were impressive, Richard Dann , test flying the K8 after its ARC, must have reached 1,000ft before he had even moved more than 500ft towards the winch. Not sure how high he eventually got to as “pole bender” Richard broke the weaklink! The strop falling a mere 50 yards away from Carol and I waiting to take off.

As mentioned launch heights were quite good as the Janus reached  2,200ft on our first launch. The ridge was working reasonably well from about 1100ft down to 800ft and by adding some thermal activity to the mix extended flights we available.

We managed to work the ridge way past the wind turbine but chickened out going to Highclere Castle as we got a bit low.

Coming back along ridge

Here is Steve Barber  in the Vega.

Steve on ridge

In the end Carol and I had about 2.5 hours on the ridge during our two flights………………brilliant!

Jim Gavin was kept busy  instructing and was assisted by Colin and Richard when it came to flying a couple of trial lessons. By some devious means Richard managed to fly time it just right so that he flew the young lady 🙂

 

Phil

Did someone say “pub?!”

Did someone say “pub?!”

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yes they did, and it was Jeremy, and it was because Jeremy had just gone solo!!!

 

(and we had put the toys away first)

 

Before that we all had done some rigging and soaring and other fun flying stuff.

 

 

The Thermal is to your left Pete

Sunday Soaring what a great way to pass the day….

Jim M decided to do some aerobatics with Pete S before the TL’s started and I got a couple of goodish circuits in before being reminded to round out…. 🙂

While the Duo Discus went on its merry way

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