Dartmoor Gliding Club News-Monday 29th August 2016

745am The early risers were keen to get going.

Forecast was a best guess. If the temperature got high enough it would be a good day.....and it was.

845am The Kit was readied and Rick gave the grass runway a quick trim before flying began.

A pre flying meeting at the clubhouse at 930 was called by Gordon , this refocused all our minds on hot topics of Safety, weather, planning, training and some of the days objectives, namely a one day course and three one flight trial lessons This I found a worth while 10-15min chat so we all pulled in the same direction (something I feel will become a regular feature like at so many other clubs) the chat I mean ,not the pulling in the same direction.

One k13 was reserved for instructor training. Thanks to all who facilitated this as we all understand how important this is for the clubs progression.

As on most good soaring days the early part of the flying list was progressing well, while the solo pilots stood looking skywards pointing upwards and chatting in technical double dutch.

Chrys Ward was one of today's visitors on the One Day Course . He was treated to the sunshine bank holiday of the year, oh and some gliding.

Visitor Paul Wingard

Visitor Darren Barker

Visitor Rodney Tallack

The visitors had fun by the looks of it.

1245- The private gliders started to interject on the launch queue, and the hour and two hour flights were beginning. Summers here!

I slipped away in the k6cr about 1:30pm for a stab at a cross country and had a trip to Northill and back.

Approaching North Hill from the north west

Conditions stayed good if you avoided the gaps and stayed above 1400ft. Low down it was broken so a few club members were unfortunate to launch in the gaps but generally, a good afternoons flying at dartmoor until....launch 36 at 5pm

The fluid fly wheel on the winch got all hot and bothered, a straw poll followed at the launch point if we waited the required 1-1.5 hours to cool and sort or to return home at a reasonable time on a good flying day and get brownie points with loved ones. This was a unanimous decision, even the two pilots strapped in the k13 waiting to launch agreed!!!

Thanks to all the team for the work done, even though a few club members didn't fly ( your efforts will be rewarded from the thermal gods next time you fly I hope)

Richard Roberts