Dartmoor Gliding News-Saturday 26th August 2017

A nice, warm summer day with light variable winds. Surprisingly, there was only a small ( but beautifully formed ) cadre of club members present, perhaps understandable on a Bank Holiday weekend when family duties seem to multiply.

Our visitors today started with John McLeavy, followed by Angela Luckett and Andrew Thorne all of whom flew with me in HXP. Also visiting today was Rebecca Almond who flew with Rick in DMX.

Visitor John Mcleavy
Angela Luckett enjoyed an extended soaring flight
Golf enthusiast Andrew Thorne made a good start to learning to fly
Rebecca and Rick flew in K13 G-DDMX
Rick's other 2 seater flights included some training flights with David Archer, and soaring flights with Chris Matten and David Bourchier. My day finished with a very enjoyable soaring flight with Steve Raine in HXP.

Steve Raine rolls the K13 into another 2 knot climb


My view of Tavistock from the back seat of HXP at 2300 feet
From around midday, the soaring conditions improved with the usual narrow thermals low down improving with height. Notable flights included a very creditable 48minutes in the K8 for recent solo pilot Andy Davey. Longest flight was 3 hours 34 minutes by Stephen Fletcher in his Open Cirrus. Barry Green was airbourne for 1 hour 40 minutes in the Silent but maybe we should discount the flight as he needed to restart his engine during the flight to prevent a landout somewhere near Okehampton.

As the afternoon worn on it became obvious that the "cloud street" above the airfield was, in fact, convergence. Pilots reported climbing up the side of the convergence ending up 1000 feet above the 2300 feet cloudbase. Great fun.

Barry ready to take off in the silent - notice the convergence cloud above
Rick's view of the runway - it looks very long from here
K8 waiting under the convergence
The best news of the day was a visit by Ged who is recovering from his second major operation in the last 12 months. It was so nice to see him up and about. He is not flying yet but is definitely on the mend. Welcome back mate.

Ged enjoying a cup of tea while watching the action.
Many thank to all those whose helped out once again, and for those who didn't come today, "where were you? - you missed out".

Steve

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