Sunday 26th February 2012

After yesterday's moist weather, today was a day of elusive thermals, both in the air and on the ground. Unseasonably warm temperatures (13 degrees C) meant that thermals were no longer needed on the legs, and T-shirts only necessary on the torsos, but high pressure ensured that thermals were pretty rare in the air as well.

Nonetheless, a good deal of flying was achieved, as Richard Williamson's photos illustrate.

Don flew a number of launch failures with Richard, whilst David Jesty gently encouraged his charges to land in the postage stamp of the airfield that wasn't peat bog. With virtually nil wind and stable conditions the day was a challenge to both winch drivers (Alan B and Nigel W) and solo pilots, with Mike Gadd doing well to achieve 18 minutes in the K-8 and Trevor Taylor managing to remain vertically out of earshot from the airfield for a full 1hr 30 minutes.

Another welcome surprise was the arrival of Henry Ford, a reciprocal member from North Hill, with Andria who unexpectedly experienced the second cable break of the day (to Nigel Williamson's delight, as he lined up the K-8 for a hangar landing approach!)

Andria Manantena, who is a ab-initio from Northill after Henry Ford taught her to drive the quad.

We also managed to fly a one day course, Paul Collings, from Totnes, and a Trial Lesson, Gary Scampton, from Lifton, which again is pretty good for February, a time of year when the financiers don't expect us to be making any income from trial lessons.

Thanks go to Alan Ballard and Nigel Williamson (for their tireless winching), and apologies to Ged Nevisky (for carving up his best efforts at rolling the ground in the vicinity of the launch point).

Martin Cropper