Wednesday 27th October 2010

A pleasant and partially thermic autumn day, with the main topic for discussion being Dave Jesty’s 19,000ft flight to achieve his diamond height - thus giving him all three diamonds. But before you all get too excited, I should tell you this happened the previous week at Portmoak, in Scotland, (although he did get his gold height at Brentor a couple of years ago).

Dave was back with us instructing yesterday and with few pre-solo students around, we were able to provide some intensive coaching to Mike Keller, Chris Fagg and Mark Lowrey, who is normally a ‘weekender’. Mike and Chris have attended - and flown numerous times - on three Wednesdays in a row, and it is noticeable how beneficial regular attendance is in terms of their competence - and confidence.

Ged and Steve Lewis concentrated on winch driver training - and gave us some super launches in the process. Thirty eight launches with no breaks, only one weak link failure (with the strop quickly found) and no cables dropped over the hedge, despite a crosswind, was a pretty creditable performance for everyone involved.

In terms of ‘new faces’, we were pleased to have Dominic Tomalin (C.O. of Kelly College CCF) with us for a series of training flights. It will be interesting to see who solos first; the boss - or one of his cadets.

As with the previous Wednesday, a brief crop of useable thermals in the late afternoon got us all excited, with Barry Green achieving 29 minutes in the Zug.

Finally, my thanks to all of you who responded to my ‘rallying call’ via the Forum and had the airfield, gliders and equipment ready early, so that once some early low cloud had cleared, we were able to start without delay.

Bob Pirie

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