Across Roborough Down Cap cloud could be seen and with the forecast easterly
wind there was hope of possible wave. This was born out with the early arrivals
of Richard Roberts and Roger Green to rig their slick glass machines. Other
Wednesday soarers slowly arrived and we got the airfield ready for flying.
 |
| Cap cloud seen from Roborough Down |
During the DI of HXP it was noticed that the tyre pressure was low. This was
soon rectified by Martin Cropper after borrowing a hand held compressor from
Steve Fletcher.
 |
| Martin inflating the tyre on HXP |
The grid slowly assembled with a club K8 & k13, Astir (Phil Hardwick),
Open Cirrus (Steve Fletcher), Discus (Richard Roberts), ASW20 (Roger Green) and
K6 (Colin Boyd).
First in the K13 with me was Hugh Gasgoyne. His second flight was his first
soaring flight since returning to flying. This had him whooping in the front
seat as we climbed to 1700’. The height was not wasted as we used it for a
couple spin recoveries and also stall recoveries. After a second set of three
flights later in the day including eventuality practices, Hugh re-soloed. Well
done Hugh. Bob Samson also occupied the front seat with myself and later Martin
Cropper in the back seat to continue his progress to hopefully resolo in the
near future.
 |
| The aircraft waiting at the launch point. |
We stacked the K13 for a short while to enable the privateers to launch.
Malcolm (K8), Steve, Richard and Roger all launched and managed to get away. So
the K13 was pulled forward for Hugh to have his second set of flights. The
circuit became very busy with all the solo pilots returning at the same time and
Hugh coped well with the extra traffic. The airfield looked like the flight deck
of Queen Elizabeth with aircraft scattered all over. After retrieving all
aircraft, normal service was resumed.
 |
| Steve Fletcher’s view near cloudbase. |
 |
| Sharing a thermal with Phil’s Astir |
Flights of the day were Richard Roberts 2:00, Roger Green 1:40, Alan Holland
1:00, Malcolm Wilton-Jones 1:00, Steve Fletcher 0:54 and Phil Hardwick 0:46.
With few trainees and a second instructor available I even managed to climb into
the K8 for 1:02.
Thank you to all for a good days flying. 11 hours and 37 minutes in 23
flights. An average of just over 30 minutes a flight
.
Peter Howarth
No comments:
Post a Comment