Slow start with no one desperate to get launched. Steve Barber did the decent thing and offered to take the first launch and we held a sweepstake on what height he would meet the cloudbase. We were pleasantly surprised to see that he got almost to the top of the launch and then started soaring, achieving 17 minutes. A few flights later Rob Jarvis moved the bar up to 30 minutes. After several more folks just doing circuits Paul Prentice went along with Rob in the K13 to observe the master of soaring. Not much chance to observe soaring technique in a 6 minute flight. So then Rob went to with Paul (this time in the Puchacz) to see how he faired. 48 minutes later (longest flight of the day) a triumphant Paul returned. Highest launch of the day was 2,100′ in the K8.
In total 24 launches of which a quarter were 30 minutes or more. A much better day than any of us had expected (plus the usual Wednesday donuts that Peter Mason feeds us).
Saturday 1st October
With Saturday being a reasonable day sandwiched between very wet days (and the weekend being declared a 1 day weekend) we’d expected a good turnout. We did have a strong turnout of TL’s but a modest one of club members. Low cloudbase limited flight times with Paul Prentice taking the honours of longest and second longest flights (10 and 11 minutes). A record held until after 15:00 when Steve Barber jumped in the K8 after his marathon session on the winch and he soared away for a whole 17 minutes. No one else was able to crack the 10 minute barrier. 30 launches in total with TL’s accounting for a dozen of those and annual checks for another 7.
Thursday 30th – 100 year old birthday boy takes to the skies!
Wednesday slipped a day this week because of the somewhat wet real Wednesday. I was able to take my neighbour for a Trial Lesson for his birthday – his 100th birthday! Not only his first flight in a glider but his first in any sort of small aircraft (30 seater being the smallest aircraft flown in previously). Many thanks to Rob, Paul, Peter, Alan B and Chris K for turning out to make the day possible (with Colin and James in reserve but working on things to keep us flying).
After our visitor (and his family, friends and photogaphers from the Newbury Weekly News) departed there was a hottly contested “keepie-up” challenge. With not much more than a 1,000 cloud base (occasional gaps to sneak through) the benchmark was set at a whole 8 minutes. This stepped up in 2 minute increments, topping out at 18 minutes
Sunday 26th – Ridge day!
The few that turned up enjoyed playing on the ridge trying to distinguish between ridge and thermal lift. It was good to welcome a former member who was getting to grips with winch launching. Between the few of us and a couple of TL’s we manged to get 16 launches out of the day.