Sunday 20th January 2012

With the Met Office predicting an easterly wind at 5 kts with rare sunshine, and the knowledge that Sam Deeks wanted to test his new 'Drift Innovation' HD camera in the air, I had visions of the vario going b-b-b-b-beep from the top of the launch and being able to say (rather patronisingly) on Sam's podcast 'And this is what Dartmoor likes like from 7 - sorry 8 - oh look now it's 9 thousand feet'. So arriving at the airfield to find the wind due north, and the sky completely overcast, soon shattered that illusion.

What the windsock doesn't tell you is the temperature - only those with a perverse desire for hypothermia would have worn less than 4 layers.  The effects of which were confirmed by an inoperable release on DMX due to frozen mud in the mechanism.  Fortunately, Dave Bourchier had a hot air gun in his car and within 5 minutes we had the offending mud thawed out. 

Dave Bourchier and hot air gun sort out the frozen winch hook.

So with the expert guidance of Martin Smith ('You need Tessa tape') Sam got the camera mounted on the fin of the K-13 up at the 'crunchy' launch point.   With the Green Army, the Carters (or should that be the Buttery's?) and Mike Keller on board, plus the added  'tease' of a little 'was it ridge or was it wave' generating extended flight times, there was enough interest at the launch point to keep the cold at bay. 

NIce view of the snow on the top of Dartmoor.

Meanwhile, in the hangar, Martin Smith, Colin Boyd and Dave Bourchier were making progress with the Bocian and K-7M's CofAs, so the initial prospect/disappointment was made up for by people being able to a. stay current and b. getting the airframes ready for the forthcoming season.

Thanks go to Nigel Williamson, who did not fly, for his smooth winching and patient tuition of next generation winch drivers. And thanks must also go Allan Holland, Alan Carter and Dave Bourchier who, at the end of the day, spent an hour removing, cleaning and replacing DMX's frozen tailwheel, and to Sam Deeks for heating water into order to remove frozen mud from the under the wings and tailplane.

Martin Cropper