Well, Carol and our glorious leader Phil are off to the the Long Mynd where they’re hoping to catch some wave. The forecast looks good and the club there have opened a wave box to fl 245. I do hope they can find their rigging pins……I’m working…..
A little wave over the weekend
I had a look at the forecast and having also got a positive email from Steve B, I headed to Denbigh for the weekend.
There weren’t many people about, two others on Saturday and only one other on Sunday (not including Kevin who single handed runs the club there).
It transpires an ASW20 which lived at Shalbourne turned up flown by a great bloke called Rob.
I think it was Carol’s and syndicated.
I had a launch, but after loosing to a coin toss I ended up at the back of the queue with my wings on trestles waiting for Kevin to get me off the ground. It was all going so well until the winch stalled at 1000 feet so I was left pondering if I should land or head for the hills. Some time later and over 8,000 feet I realised I’d made the right choice.
Landing was not much fun but an approach of 85 knots and turning finals on the threshold at 900 feet saw me landing about the right spot.
Sunday was a little different, clearer skies and not much wave about so I ran the ridge with Rob in the ASW20 and stooged about for a few hours. Oh, did I mention I got a cable break at 950 feet…..
Again the landing was, well exciting and could have benefited from being completely held off. To be honest I was just glad to get to the ground in one piece!
440 miles travel- 2 launches- 2 landings (honest) and 6 hours of flying. ’twas good.
Saturday 26th
Arrived at the field to find equipment DI’d but not moved into position but with my appearancewe had enough to operate (just). By the time we were ready to fly a few more had arrived so Ken P was thrown into the air for a weather check and to decide whether we just put everything back – there was rather a lot of wind and cloudbase didn’t look that grand. Before the launch Colin suggested to Ken that if cloudbase was at 1,000′ then he’d probably still be able to land ahead. Turned out cloudbase didn’t get in the way but we watched the K13 sitting stationary above the winch – when he finally headed downwind for his circuit he really moved. Just the one K13 out and it was a matter of pick your instructor to fly with. Just 11 launches but that was enough to take the total launches for November past the number achieved for the whole of November last year. Longest flight honours went to James W beating the next longest flights by 33% – yup, he managed a whole 8 minutes.
Wednesday 23rd
After a run of duff Wednesdays we finally got to play. Bob set the standard on the second launch with 14 minutes in the K8 enjoying some week wave. An achievement no one else was able to match (though a couple of us did manage 13 minutes). Still some colour in the trees to enjoy. 22 launches even after a late start due to having to sort out 2 flat tyres