Saturday 22nd September 2012

Blue sky, fresh ESE breeze. Promising start. Will there be wave?

The day got off to a busy start. The winch was moved to the east end, the launchpoint was brought to the west end, gliders out and inspected. K13 G-DDMX was reassembled after it’s exclusion to a local field on Wednesday and off we go.

How many glider pilots does it take to remove a bolt from a trailer? The rigging crew

The first couple of 2 seater flights showed enough promise to send most of the solo pilots to their trailers to rig in anticipation of some good flying. In addition to the club fleet, the launch queue was eventually joined by my Jantar 1, Martin’s ASW20, Mike’s Astir CS, the Green’s Foka 5 and Alan’s SF27a.

The 2 seaters were busy with Mike Sloggett flying all of our many visitors and Ged covering all the rest of the instruction requirements. We welcomed Dave Wallis to the club today who is returning after a break of 10 years or so.

There was weak wave most of the day and this lead to most flights having some soaring, several around the half hour, 5 flights over 1 hour including 1hour 58 minutes by Martin Broadway (ASW20) and 2 hours and 5 minutes by me in the Jantar 1 ( see “How I did it” below ).

The day finished late with a convivial beer and chat in the clubhouse as the sun started to set.

A very good day was had by all.

Steve