With a light easterly breeze, a forecast temperature of 23 C ( somewhat in excess of Marbella - I've wait quite a while to be able to write that ), and a blue sky, tee shirt and shorts, soaring hats and sun screen were the order of the day. The club fielded the 2*K13's and 2*K8's which were joined by the Zugvogel 3B and the Open Cirrus from the private fleet.
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| A welcome visitor. Ex member Alan Carter about to launch |
Was today going to be soarable? We were hoping so but high pressure conditions sometimes put a lid on that ( literally). The first launch at 11am was just a circuit in smooth air with our One Day Course candidate Lydia Fenelley. But Lydia's 2nd flight was much better. There was a little disturbance in the otherwise smooth air to the north side of the launchpoint. A little searching and turning found that this was a thermal about 2 knots low down but it soon built to an astonishing 8 knots higher up which whisked us to the inversion at 3600 feet above the airfield. Lydia took good advantage of this to learn to operate the controls and by the time we landed 43 minutes later was quite happily flying the aircraft around.
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| One Day Course candidate Lydia sporting a fetching borrowed hat |
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| Today's entry into the guess the back of the head competition - Lydia turning us left |
This flight encouraged the launchpoint into action and we were soon joined by the other K13 pilotted by Ged with today's instructor Mike Sloggett, followed by Roger Green in the Zugvogel who recorded the longest flight of the day at 1 hour 39 minutes, Stephen Fletcher in the Open Cirrus 1hour 22 minutes. Roger reported finding a thermal that had broken through the inversion and he topped out at 4600 feet.
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| The dark line marks the inversion |
The day settled into this pattern with lots of soaring in the amazingly buoyant conditions. Lots of the flights started with a climb in what became today's "house" thermal. This 6 to 8 knot beauty was in a position between the winch and Mary Tavy just on the edge of the next hill. Sage conjecture at the launchpoint decided that this was a wave effect.
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| The airfield and Blackdown both look very dry already |
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| Roger Green's view as he turns in a thermal |
We also welcomed visitor Janet Ellard who probably needs a medal for persistence as she had made 4 previous attempts to fly with us only to be thwarted by the weather each time. Today made up for that with a great soaring flight.
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| Visitor Janaet waiting to fly |
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| Team Janet |
Thanks to all those who helped and showed remarkable patience dealing with today's challenges with aircraft tyres and misbehaving winches.
Steve
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