Early arrival at the club Mike Bennett found evidence that cattle had managed
to get through the hurdle fence. After a quick discussion with the landlord it
was agreed to re-instate the cable through the fence after the bank holiday
weekend. The Wednesday soarers slowly arrived and a K13 and K8 were liberated
from the hangar ready for the days flying.
First to fly was John O’Connell who was returning after a week’s course at
Aston Down. He had three flights with me to reacquaint himself with our narrow
strip after the expanse of Aston Down. John is now doing all the flying so he
will be consolidating what he has learnt and progressing to launch failures and
other parts of the syllabus.
Next to fly with me was Bob Sansom. After a good circuit and two launch
failures I allowed him to re-solo in the K13. Well done Bob, we’ll soon have you
back in the K8 in the coming weeks.
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| Bob before re-soloing |
With the sky looking more buoyant, Malcolm launched in the K8 and was soon
seen climbing shortly after release. He managed to climb to cloudbase at 2100ft.
Still climbing he had to open the airbrakes to stay clear of cloud.
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| 2000’ and still climbing |
John Smith and I launched in the K13. John found some lift at the top of the
launch, but did not manage to climb and wasn’t losing height either so we stuck
with it. We slowly drifted towards Black Down and the lift slowly increased. The
climb was abandoned at 1750ft climbing at 4 t0 6 knts by pulling airbrakes to
stay clear of cloud. Rain could be seen approaching from the south, so we had to
use airbrakes to make our way down and land. A break of 1½ hours to allow the
rain associated with the clod front to pass through ensued.
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| Frontal clouds gathering |
The K8 was also flown by Steve Fletcher and Andy Davey for extended circuits.
Last to fly with me was Hugh Gasgoyne. After a good circuit we got ready for a
second flight. I was planning a launch failure, but my plans were thwarted by a
real cable break which was well executed with a straight ahead landing.#
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| K8 on the end of the wire. |
With the break in flying and a small group today, only 14 launches. Thank you
to everybody who helped run the field and flew.
Peter Howarth
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