Dartmoor Gliding News-Monday 14th June 2021

The first day of the soaring week saw a group of members keen to fly. CFI Mark Courtney was on site and after the morning briefing a K13 and SF27 were towed to the east end launch point. They were joined by the Open Cirrus and Astir.

Astir and Open Cirrus under what looked an inviting sky.

First into the K13 with Mark was John Allen. Three good flights making some good decisions without prompting and a couple of minor errors rectified showed John is well on his way to achieve his solo ambition.

Mark and John doing pre-flight checks.

New member Patrick Cosgrave was next to fly with me. He made good progress with early flying skills and the use of the trim. His four flights included a demonstration of how to fly a launch failure when we had a cable break. Store this one away Patrick for future use when you will need to undertake this part of your training.

Robin Wilson was next to fly with me to try and hone his flying finesse ready to return to solo soon. His third flight managed to be extended to 10 minutes which remained the longest flight of the day..

Mark’s next pilot to fly with was Mike Bennett, who flew some exercises on his road towards his Bronze C.

Mark and Mike all smiles before their flight.

Steve Fletcher (Open Cirrus) and Malcolm Wilton-Jones both tried their luck, but only managed circuits despite the sky looking more inviting.

Malcolm strapping into the SF27.

Lastly in the K13 were Hugh Gascoyne and Scratch who took turns to fly from the back seat and get some valuable practice for their up and coming IFP assessments.

Hugh and Scratch – IFP’s in waiting.

A big thank you to Scratch who put in some hard work with his Grinder and got the SupaCat winch ready to be brought back on line. At the end of the day it was placed alongside the Gus winch ready for trial and use on Tuesday. More about this in the next blog.

Thanks for all the help around the airfield, keeping things moving achieving 22 flights which wasn’t too bad considering the 11 O’Clock start.

Peter Howarth