Dartmoor Gliding News-Wednesday 18th March 2015

The forecast for today looked favourable with the wind light(ish) from the NE with a mostly clear blue sky. Definitely no rain.

Luckily Instructor David Jesty offered  to fly with us today. This and the good forecast ensured that the club was busy. The club fleet was out and there were 4 private gliders, Bob’s K8, Mike in the Open Cirrus and both of the Astir CS’s.

Initially the conditions were a little suppressed by a strong inversion at 1900 feet which allowed some soaring but only to this height. By early afternoon however the increasing temperatures had broken the inversion and pilots were reporting cloudbases around 3800 feet above the airfield ( 4600 feet above sea level). There was signs of wave, lots of thermals and the north ridge was working with thermal enhanced ridge effects to 1000 feet. Great fun in the somewhat boisterous air.

The K8 being flown by Chris Jones as seen by Mike Gadd in the Open Cirrus

Most pilots achieved soaring flights with the longest of the day going to Mike Gadd in the Open Cirrus who chose to land after 2 hours 13 minutes. The other notable flight today was by Chris Jones who flew the club K8 for 1 hour and 10minutes securing on of his required legs for the cross country endorsement. Well done Chris.

No, not a visiting skater, it's pilot Chris Jones celebrating his first 1 hour soaring flight

Where did Chris go during his flight?
 Well not very far actually as this trace shows
(The airfield is top centre)

Not to be forgotten were the 2 seaters. We welcomed visitor Edward Noy who enjoyed 2 short soaring flights with me. By the end of flight two Edward was managing to turn the aircraft quite successfully. David flew all day completing the instructors usual mix of check rides and training flights which included a couple of good soaring flights. Many thanks from us all David.

Visitor Edward Noy contemplating his first ever glider flight.

Fred marks is happy to be flying the K13 from the back seat.
Here he is taking club member David Bourchier for a flight.

Of course the airfield doesn’t run itself, so our thanks is also due to everyone who helped out driving winches, retrieve, log keeping, launching and towing etc.etc. Thanks everyone.

Derigging at the end of the day

The weather has definitely turned a corner. A great start to the season.

Steve