Dartmoor Gliding News-Saturday 6th July 2019

We are still under the influence of high pressure. There are fronts crossing the country to the north but they are thankfully far enough away not to spoil our day. There is some evidence of this in the sky with some pre frontal "wave" looking clouds and a threat of high cirrus to damp down the sun's warmth. The RASP forecast gave some soaring possibilities early in the day but abruptly cutting off in the afternoon. ( spreadout?). The wind was light from the NW, strengthening later and veering a little further to the north.

Looking south under an uninspiring sky

Today we were missing a few Saturday stalwarts. Scratch and Rick are in North Hill checking out a possible winch purchase and DMX was off line having the last of it's CofA work done. But the remaining members were keen to get going with the first launch at 10.30. The club aircraft K13 HXP with both of the K8's were joined at the launch point by the Twin Astir, Open Cirrus and Zugvogel 3B from the private fleet.

Karon Marren 

Karon's husband Chris climbing well

Right from the off there was some soaring to be had. The conditions though were best described as difficult. There were very narrow, elusive thermal bubbles that were not at all organised until above about 1800 feet which led to the low cloudbase at 2300 feet. As the afternoon wore on this became more and more difficult.

Looking down at the launch point while soaring over the north ridge.

But the DGS pilots were up to the challenge. Andy Davey in the Zugvogel 3B had the longest flight of the day at 2 hours 21 minutes making great use of the new variometer. Other notable flights were Steve Fletcher in the Open Cirrus 1 hour 53 minutes and Joe Nobbs in the K8 1 hour 23 minutes.

One Day Course candidate Rita Smith ready to fly with me.

Was the K13 left out of this revelry? Not at all. One Day Course candidate Rita Smith and I had a couple of good soaring flights of 55 and 43 minutes during which Rita made a good start at mastering the controls and is very keen to visit us again soon. Our other visitor today was Simon Jeffrey enjoyed a short soaring flight with Mike Jardine to complete his Introductory Flight.

Sim on Jeffrey with Mike Jardine

Late afternoon the wanderers returned and Scratch and Rick both managed to get a flight in.

Our thanks to all the helpers.

Steve