After yesterday's atrocious weather at least the forecast for today was dry
with, if the BBC was to be believed, a wink of sunshine between 2-3pm. Well
that never happened but at least we were able to mount a full day's flying
programme, including a One Day Course, four 'trial lesson' visitors and at least
3 club trainees.
Cloudbase was a little challenging at start of the day
(1,200ft agl), but rose steadily to peak at 1,500ft around lunchtime, when some
gentle thermals could be found by those sufficiently sensitive to detect and
make use of them. Hence Flight of the Day went to Paula Howarth (flying with
ballast in the back seat), closely followed by IFP Roger Appleboom.
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| The Tors wreathed in orographic as the evening drew in. |
With Dan
Tofield flying with Roger as our scheduled One Day Course, it was also good to
see Chrys Ward appear to conclude a ODC that was abbreviated by poor weather a
week or so ago: we look forward to seeing more of Chrys as a Full Member as and
when his (mainly weekend) duties at Tesco allow...
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| Our One Day Course student was Dan Tofield. |
Other visitors included Greg
Sleeman, Matthew Bamber, Allan Lee and Allan's grandfather Mike Wonnacott. Thus
whilst the launch rate barely exceeded 4 launches per hour, the overall total of
28 launches was not to be sneezed at, shared as it was between our two hard
working K-13s, with no sport sailplanes (ie. single seaters) taking advantage of
the improved weather.
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| Visitor Michael Wonnacott. |
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| Allen Lee flew with IFP Roger Appleboom. |
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| Visitor Matthew Bamber. |
With thanks to Barry Green and Heather for providing a
faultless winch'n'retrieve service for much of the day, at about 6:45pm we
retired to the clubhouse with a certain sense of satisfaction that everyone had
flown and nothing broken.
Martin Cropper
PS. By the time you read this we will be sending
congratulations to returning member Dave Parker. Dave, who was forced onto the
subs' bench of the Sunday Soarers due to ill health, will by now be sunning
himself on honeymoon in Mauritius, having recently bought himself a Standard
Cirrus as a wedding present! There are a number of comments that could possibly
follow - but over which we will rapidly conclude with a hearty...All the best,
Dave!
2 comments:
Well Dave, I know buying your own glider can be expensive but.......marriage, now your talking money. Congratulations Dave.
A fair comment Rich. She is worth it though! Thankyou.
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