Dartmoor Gliding News-Sunday 28th August 2016

Today was a day of questions, not least being would Roger Appleboom's friends from Taunton - motorcycle examiner Adrian Troake, driving examiner partner Leanne King and her son Warren be able to fly today? With low cloud and gravity assisted H2O in issue early on, clearly that would not be possible at the start of the day (see photo), but was there the possibility of a clearance later on? 

En-route to the club – things didn’t improve much...

 Examination of the synoptic chart revealed a question mark shaped occlusion lying on its side over the western end of the SW peninsula - would that indicate a possibility? Perhaps... So, bravely, Gordon set to with an Introductory Lesson Briefing (which he has revamped, inc. videos), which led to another, and another, as the downwardly mobile wet stuff continued to hammer on the porch roof. Most interactively engaging of a set of briefings was the construction of a Flight Plan, in which Warren wrote a knee-pad brief of the nav and airspace considerations that those present (including solo pilots) noted could be expected on or near track during a Silver Distance flight between Shenington and Talgarth - very interesting...

...until at about 3pm a blue hole appeared – but it didn’t linger.

The predicted clearance did indeed appear (as captured in the photo) at around 3pm; it didn't linger, however, and by 3:15 we re-entered the loop of the occlusion's low cloud. So Adrian, Leanne and Warren didn't get to fly, however they rebooked for another day and departed with a newly acquired set of knowledge about gliding they could never have expected on arrival!

Tomorrow (Bank Holiday Monday), looks much more promising, weatherwise...

 Martin Cropper