Winds 320/20, clear skies and strong low level inversion.
Breakfast was a confusing affair, the bacon and eggs were great but it was accompanied by mutterings from Jack the Parrot (involving throwing his food dish on the floor), mutterings from Chris Kaminski about how he is struggling to make his PDA talk to the computer?, and mutterings from Alan Carter about how there shouldn’t be 2, 7ams in any 24 hours!
The wind direction and strength + David Jesty assisting on the airfield made it possible to experiment with the ridges. Roger Appleboom and I set off from the top of launch (1300ft) and flew to (almost )Sourton Tor.The distance was 4 nautical miles, but unfortunately we arrived at the shallower lower slopes with only 450ft QFE and with few decent landing options were forced to follow the ridge line back. Blackdown worked modestly well between 350 and 400ft, we re-joined the circuit from an extended base leg. We have concluded that the wind needed to be a little more westerly to give us a better initial launch and less headwind on the outbound track---so we are not giving up.
With 2 instructors the trainees were able to do loads of flights and great progress was made. As the day progressed, the winds eased and made landing a positive pleasure.
Unfortunately the K8 got a puncture and Mike Ashton led a small team to set about fixing it. To cut a frustrating story short, we de-rigged the K8 and took it back to the hangar by headlights. Thanks to everyone for pitching in and giving us a happy ending to the story.
Thanks again to everyone, including those who patiently took turn on the winch.
Don
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