Was it 'Just an Illusion', as "Imagination" would have us believe, or 'Just an Occlusion' as the Met Office was telling us would be topping the weather charts?
Well, the occlusions were the winners today, with 3 visible on the UK synoptic chart and a returning warm front expected to affect the SW peninsula in the afternoon. So after yesterday's gin clear 2hr plus soaring day was today to be a scrub? Not a bit of it!
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| One Day Course student Ben May travelled from Par in Cornwall to fly with us. |
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| One Day Course student Lucas Paulou looks ready for aviating adventure with Pete Howarth. |
Fortunately, and despite the moisture laden atmosphere, there were steps in the cloudbase that enabled us to fly our two One Day Course students, Lucas Paulou (from Callington) and Ben May (from Par) and a host of visitors, most of whom are pictured here. OK so some flights may have been short, but where this was the case Introductory Flight Pilots Pete Howarth and Roger Appleboom were more than happy to give their charges a second bite of the winch. In total, we flew 5 visitors which, with club trainees Paula Howarth and Dave Downton (and our usual glideaholic solo suspects) enabled us to achieve 32 launches overall - not bad considering we had to take an East Devon style 50 minute lunch break when low cloud actually precipitated water onto the wings.
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| Visitor Andrew March flew with Pete Howarth. |
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| Lorraine Harwood (pictured) and Sarah Banbury visited to celebrate Lorraine’s birthday next week. |
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| As a worker in ‘oil and gas’, visitor Laurance Walburg has spent many hours in airliners, but received his first real air experience today at Brentor. |
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| Visitor Kevin Unsworth flew with Roger Appleboom. |
Meanwhile, down at the clubhouse Dave Bourchier was making like an alchemist sorting scrap ready to be transformed into cash next week - thanks, Dave! And thanks also to whoever swept out the hangar - it really makes a difference to putting the gliders away smoothly at the end of a long day.
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And “Set”: Adrian Irwin and Paula Howarth are ready for the ‘off’
- back to the clubhouse as low cloud stops play. |
And so while Flight of the Day was once again won by newly qualified winch driver Adrian Irwin, mention must also be made of IFPs Roger Appleboom and Pete Howarth, who kept our visitors entertained and safe in the air in challenging conditions.
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Always prepared to innovate,
a club member ‘discovers’ a new use for the Land Rover Discovery during a break in flying. |
And so, by about 5:15pm it wasn't just an illusion, it was definitely those multiple occlusions that had brought the cloudbase back down below the level of the church, and it was time to put the gliders safely away for another day.
Martin Cropper
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