Dartmoor Gliding News-Saturday 3rd June 2017

We are in the middle of the great summer weather, right? No, wrong!! Yesterday it rained all day. Although today started off with a bright blue sky, another weak trough with associated showers was due to cross our location around midday.

The cloud cover built up rapidly during the morning effectively stopping any noticeable convection. In fact best flight of the day was the first flight by Instructor Mike Jardine with new trainee Dominic March who stayed airbourne for 15 minutes.

Dominic and Mike ready to fly
We welcomed two visitors today, Donald Britz who flew with Mike and Lynette Alcock who flew with me. During Lynette's first 2 flights the approaching showers could be seen clearly. She showed great patience as we waited for half an hour or so for the first of the showers to pass through before completing flight three. Shortly after this we stood down for an hour and a half as the main band of showers lashed the airfield.


Visitor Donald with Mike
Visitor Lynette looks excited to be flying
Eventually the rain stopped and flying started again. We were obviously in a new airmass with a cleaner, cooler feel and the wind has moved from south west to west. Soaring was even more difficult now and the best anyone managed was a whole 8 minutes in the K8 by Mike Bennett. It was about the same time that Barry Green had his first flight in his new K6 which he now shares with Mike. Great stuff.

Mike with the K8
Barry with his "new" K6
While all this fun was being had, a few dedicated members were busy at work in the hangar. Rick Wiles, Philip Hardwick and David Bourchier spent their day stripping down the engine of the Zetor tractor whose engine has mysteriously seized while mowing. By the end of the day a faulty cylinder head leading to two welded pistons had been diagnosed and all the offending parts were stripped ready for repair/replacement. This was in fact the 4th day that David had spent working on the airfield this week. Thank you all.

 Rick and David wearing this week's fashionable gliding attire
Phil and Rick discussing tactics.
"Angels with dirty faces" No, just Rick at the end of a long day

Steve  

  


1 comment:

Rich Roberts said...

A big thanks to all those who were involved in the technical fixing of things around the club. It really is appreciated by those of us technical pigmys even if we/I don't say it often enough. Thanks