DGS News Wed 20th March 2013

The day started with very light north westerly breezes and a clear blue sky,  altogether a very pleasant spring day.

Initially, fights found very smooth air, but out to the west a big line of showers could clearly be seen. As the line of showers approached there was a large area of sinking air followed by some astonishing thermals. By staying close to the showers, thermal cores giving 5 knot average climbs to 3500 feet were plentiful. This provided great fun for a little while until the showers passed by towards the east. 

Andrew Beaumont in his Astir timed his launch just right to take advantage of these conditions and ended up with 39 minutes for the longest flight of the day. Andrew only returned to the airfield because the showers were pushing him further and further away to the east and the showers between him and the airfield threatened to cut off his return.

Tracey Stear and instructor Steve waiting to go

 We welcomed visitors Tracey and Mark Stear who were both flying in gliders for the first time. Tracey had a couple of flights followed by Mark who was lucky enough to experience some thermal soaring among the showers. Both of them will be returning for some more flying soon.

Visitor Mark Stear ready to go 

Although our normal Wednesday instructor Bob couldn’t be with us today, the slack was taken up by instructors Ged and David who kept the K13 busy all day with a mixture of pre and post solo training and check flights. I was interested to see that one of these flights was with Field Treasurer David Rippon who took advantage of the opportunity to start training to fly the K13 from the back seat.

Elsewhere on the airfield, the hangar was the usual hive of activity with inspector John Bolt assisted by David Bourchier,Alan Holland and Colin Boyd completing the Zugvogel C of A and ARC renewal after which the aircraft  was rigged. A couple of minor tasks remain before this aircraft returns to fleet service. Colin Boyd continued his work on the second Quad bike. This is nearing completion and was used to tow the K8 Open Trailer up to the trailer park after the Zugvogel was unloaded. Alan Carter has finally completed sanding the SF27 wings and was last seen applying various layers of dope etc. ready to put new fabric onto the wings.

Colin, second quad bike and K8 trailer.

A good, fun day.

Steve