Wednesday 16th May 2012

What a day! The cumulus were popping right from the start and delivered what they promised - although the gradual but relentless encroachment of sea air from the north coast gave us extra impetus to 'get up there and on with it'. Thus there were hardly any instances of pilots saying: "I think I'll just hang on for a while and wait for conditions to improve."

The fact that we were few in number meant that we hardly noticed that BVB and DWG were temporarily offline. However, we all definitely noticed and appreciated the sterling efforts by our Technical Officer John Bolt, Chairman Steve Lewis and all-round Problem Solver Dave Bourchier, which got them sorted by the end of the day.

Today's highlights? Well, a light, cold breeze and frequent cloud cover made the strength of the sun deceptive, and many of us arrived home with sunburn.

Soaring conditions locally were perfect, with most pilots indulging in decent soaring flights up to a cloudbase of more than 3,000 feet. Towards evening, there was little evidence of the sun over the airfield, but to the north and east, the thermals were still 'working', and a convergence provided the final magic ingredient of a super soaring day.

It doesn't get to look better than this

As far as club aircraft were concerned, in DMX Don occupied himself with 'entertaining' firstly David Horne, from Plymouth, who after a recent one-day course has signed up to our fixed price to solo programme, and then Nigel Twinn, from Tavistock, who is coming to the end of his three-month trial membership. (Hopefully Don and the team have convinced you to join us on a more permanent basis, Nigel.) 

Jeff Craggs (left) explains some of the mysteries to new members David Horne(centre) and Nigel Twinn.

Lacking the K8 - their preferred mount - John Howe was persuaded to upgrade to and soar in the Zugvogel, while Steve Raine went off the in K13 and earned himself a Bronze C and Cross Country Endorsement leg with a flight of more than an hour. (Not bad for someone who only went solo back in January.)

Despite his being on-line and ready to go early, Andrew Beaumont decided against going cross country in the Astir, but he had a couple of good local flights anyway. Darren Wills also achieved a Bronze leg in the K6, Martin Broadway and I had fun in the ASW20F, and Ged and Phil got the newly-ARC'd Twin Astir airborne for some dual and solo flights.

A light day's instructing workload saw Bob off and away in the ASW20F. He's flanked by syndicate partner Martin Broadway (right) and Steve Raine.

Thanks, by the way, to Jeff Craggs and John Howe for some splendid winching (apart from my own 650ft launch, that is!)

But I've saved one of the best bits to the end. Even our esteemed and hard-working CFI, Don Puttock, is not immune from the need to keep his solo hours up, so as we were about to conclude the day's operations, he eased himself into the front seat of DMX for what he later described as 'Probably my most enjoyable soaring flight since I've been at Brentor'  (or words to that effect). Also, with his own solo hours in mind, Steve Lewis ended the day soaring along a sea breeze front for a very enjoyable 1 1/2 hours or so in the Zugvogel.

Photo taken by Don in the K113 flying towards the sea breeze front

Bob Pirie