Dartmoor Gliding News-Wednesday 15th April 2015

Clear blue skies and a light northerly wind promised a warm day with good soaring.
In the event we got the warm day with tee shirt and shorts being the preferred dress code. The soaring was poor. The pressure was high with a strong inversion and locally the heat was just not high enough to break this up and allow proper thermal activity. Just to tease us, there were obvious thermals all day over the higher parts of Dartmoor to the east marked by a growing line of cumulus clouds.

The cumulus teased us all day

 There were 4 private gliders out today; Colin’s K6, Bob’s K8, Steve’s Astir and Martin’s ASW20 which was sporting a new drag inducing device as he had left the roll of wing tape attached to the wing/fuselage join.

The new drag inducing device (wing tape) left attached on the ASW20

ASW20 owner and inventor of drag inducing devices Martin Broadway

The most notable flight of the day was by Allan Holland in the club K8 who managed to scratch out a 40minute flight by shear hard work in the low level bubbles around the adjacent slopes. Excellent effort.

Heather went flying with Fred Marks

Today’s visitor was Anne Cathercole who enjoyed a couple of short flights in the K13 with me. She did very well in her attempts to control the aircraft and left the site with a big smile and promising to return for some more flying. Also flying in the K13 was Heather who works tirelessly around the site. Heather had been retrieving cables all day. On her last visit she managed to clean the whole clubhouse single handed.

Visitor Anne in K13 G-CHXP

Anne's flight on the launch

2/3 airbrake approach as Anne returns to terra firma.

A enjoyable day with friends.

Steve