Having driven from Plymouth in varying degrees of clear air and foggy
stretches it was no surprise that the airfield was shrouded in fog. Roger and
Richard were in the clubhouse preparing for the day by drinking tea. Shortly
after Ed Borlase, Mark Jerman and Josef Nobbs (yes you read that correctly)
turned up and discussions turned to, when is the fog going to clear. It was
decided to be optimistic that the fog would clear sooner rather than later. So
the small crew set about extracating the two seaters from the hangar and setting
the airfield up ready to fly.
 |
| Gliders in the mist |
About 10:30 it was decided the sky was clearing, so we towed the gliders to
the east end to await the cloudbase to rise enough to start flying. First into
the air was Mark Jerman and myself at 10:52 for a weather check flight. With
virtually nil wind we achieved a 800ft launch. So we were off for the days
flying.
Our first visitor was Paul Rendell from the Dartmoor News magazine. Paul and
I had two flights, one of 8 minutes during which he took several photos and we
talked about the club and other aspects of Dartmoor. Paul will be writing an
article for the magazine and should feature in the January/February 2018
edition. I will confirm this at a later date.
 |
| Paul Rendell |
Our other visitors came in a steady flow. The first two were Leonie and Kevin
Knight who flew with Richard. We had to shoe horn Kevin into the back seat or we
would not have been able to fly him. Both enjoyed their flights.
 |
| Kevin Knight | | | |
 |
| Leonie Knight |
 |
| Pamela Prades |
Another visitor Pamela Prades also flew with Richard.
Our last visitors were David Lamb and David Hatton who both flew with Roger.
 |
| David Lamb |
 |
| David Hatton |
One family member who arrived with David Hatton was Chloe. She was very keen
to sit in a glider which Ed oversaw and she also pestered her dad to have a
flight. Arrangements were made for her to fly in the back seat with me in the
front. She bravely got settled in the back, only at the last minute was even
braver to speak up and say she didn’t want to fly. We presented her with a
certificate for being brave and look forward to her coming back when she is a
little bigger and braver.
 |
| Brave Chloe with me |
I was kept busy with club flying. After Mark’s first flight, his second was a
high cable break practice. He also had two more flights at the end of the day
including a hangar flight. All were handled well. New member Lee Morgan paid us
a visit instead of his usual Saturday visits. He progressed with a demonstration
of adverse yaw and started trying to turn the glider and flying straight and
level. Good progress was made, well done Lee. Josef had a couple of flights with
Roger to maintain currency, flying from the front seat and then trying out the
back seat.
What about our other star solo pilot, ED?
He had a quick
check flight with me and then took to the air for a couple of solo flights. His
second flight was the longest of the day. A very successful 12 minutes. We had
difficulty stopping him talking about it for quite a while.
 |
| Ed waiting to launch for the longest flight of the day. |
A big thank you to Roger and Richard for Winching. Also Josef, Alan Holland
and Mark for retrieving. Although only 22 flights today, everything went
smoothly considering the small amount of members present. All flew who wanted
to. I must also say a big thank you to Scratch who finished off the repair to
the entrance without flying.
Peter Howarth
