Dartmoor Gliding News-Wednesday 28th November 2014

With the prospect of light north westerly winds it was off to the airfield with the idea of a good training day.

K13 G-DDMX waiting for the off

However, on arrival it was clear the the forecast was misleading. There was fog, lots of it. We got the gliders out and waited. Whilst waiting Phil Hardwick brought the old mower down to the hangar where John Rogers replaced all the wooden covers. Eventually the cloudbase looked like it was rising enough so it was off to the launchpoint.

John Rogers replacing the wooden deck on the topper mower

The first flight revealed that the cloudbase was only about 750 feet with lots of cloud much lower that this. After waiting a little more it became obvious that the cloudbase was not going to get any better.

The prize for the most optimistic pilot goes to Mike Keller who rigged his K8 just in case 

So, plan B saw instructor Ged Nevisky putting everyone through their paces dealing with practice launch failures. By 2:30 pm, as the temperature dipped once more, the cloudbase lowered even more and the canopy started misting up. Time to return to the hangar.

The K8 tow bar in an autumnal setting

Although we only had a short flying day, we made the best use of it that we could. Lots of pilots practiced launch failures. We test out the K8 tow out gear provided by Allan Holland and had a day out with friends.

Steve