Dartmoor Gliding News-Wednesday 22nd July 2020

Today's forecast was for light variable south westerly winds and the soaring forecast showing that conditions should improve as the day went on.

Two returning members were at the airfield, keen to get back into the air. First into the front seat of the K13 was Peter Mountford.

Peters x 2 ready to go.

 Three flights including a 19 minute soaring flight gave Peter plenty of stick time to start bringing his skills back to where he was when he last flew back in January.

Second to jump into the front seat was Martin Broadway. After an extended circuit of 10 minutes and a couple of well executed cable break practices he was cleared to fly solo.

Martin ready to regain his wings.

The solo pilots including Mike Bennett, Barry Green, Scratch, Steve Lewis and Malcolm Wilton-Jones all took turns to try their hands in the K8. The best times recorded by the K8 pilots was Scratch 50 minutes and Steve 37 minutes.

With conditions improving there was a flurry of activity by the other solo pilots to bring their sleek machines to the launch queue. Richard (Discus), Roger (ASW20) and Phil (Astir).

Roger’s view of the road from Yelverton towards Plymouth.

River Tamar

After visiting a lot of southwest Devon Roger returned after 2 hour 13 minutes and Phil after 1 hour 51 minutes. Longest flight of the day was claimed by Richard with 2 hour 47 minutes.

As we continue to slowly open the club up to more members, let’s hope that the recent restrictions imposed by the government do not stop this progress.

Thank you to all at the cub today for their help in keeping things moving and achieving 22 launches.

Peter Howarth