Today's forecast looks promising. A mix of sun and possible showers later with a brisk NW wind strengthening later. RASP looks reasonable with a good soaring window in the early afternoon.
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| Initially to sky looked better than it was. |
After the morning briefing today's Instructor Rick Wiles led the way with a 20 minute flight with returning pilot Ian Woolley in DMX. Good start. I followed with the first flight with today's One Day Course candidate John Gray which turned out to be a scratching 13 minutes. We hooked a thermal but were quickly whisked off down wind ( the wind at flying heights was quite strong ) such that it took all the height we had gained to return to the airfield. 40 minutes later John and I flew again and the thermals had strengthened and started to street. This allowed us to have a comfortable 1 hour 5 minutes only airbraking back down to the field for a spot of lunch.
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| One Day Course candidate John Gray |
Meanwhile today's private fleet got their acts together and we were joined by the Open Cirrus, Twin Astir SF27, Zugvogel 3B and K10. Best flight was Steve in the Open Cirrus who achieved 1 hour 29 minutes on his 2nd flight.
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| The Open Cirrus under a great sky. |
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Steve's view of Mary Tavy
( I had asked the solo pilots for some photos of our neighbours at Mary Tavy) |
Our other visitor today was David Barbour who enjoyed a good soaring flight with Roger Green who was helping out with the instructor duties in between flying the Zugvogel 3B.
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| Roger presenting David Barbour with his Certificate |
By the mid afternoon we had a very dark, angry looking cloud above the airfield that seemed to cut off the thermal activity and was giving some rain. Although the gliders were now down to circuits only, Barry Green flying the SF27 obviously hadn't got the memo and he promptly climbed to cloudbase and disappeared for a very creditable 51 minutes before reappearing through the gloom.
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| This cloud gave a light sprinkling of rain |
The overdeveloped, dark cloud eventually moved away and the conditions recycled to such an extent that Rick flew his K10 for an hour taking off at 5pm. The unkind amongst us might think he did that to avoid helping us put the kit away but I am sure that thought never occurred to him.
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| Rick climbing at 6 knots in the K10 |
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| Rick's view of Mary Tavy |
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| Just how many people does it take to derig a K10??? |
A great day for local soaring.
Steve
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