With a reasonable forecast for the time of year, light variable wind and RASP giving 2.5 stars mid-afternoon, it was surprising that only a small group of members were at the airfield today. Everybody we set about setting up the airfield ready to fly with first launch at 11:04.
With the K8 temporarily off-line, two K13’s were taken to the east end launch point. First into the K13 with me was Mike Bennett for a couple of launch failure practices, preparing him for the final stages of obtaining hi bronze C qualification. The eventualities were well flown with only minor critique. A soaring flight later in the day with Gavin Short gave him some useful pointers to improving his soaring skills. A final launch failure practice at the end of the day enabled John Smith to be passed out for driving the Gus winch.
After a quick check flight with me, John Smith was off to add to his count of solo flights. Two flights including a 22 minute soaring flight shows he has not lost his soaring boots
 |
| John getting ready for his solo flights. |
With two IFP’s at the club today, Hugh and Gavin agreed to share the workload. First to arrive was Frank Jordan with other family members. Frank last flew in a glider about 10 years ago at Lasham. He used to be a flight engineer on Sunderland aircraft. Frank enjoyed two flights with Hugh, the longest was a flight of 35 minutes which was longer than any of his flights at Lasham.
 |
| Frank Thanking Hugh for his flights. |
Gavin was next to occupy the back seat and fly with Lesley Jordan, Frank’s daughter-in-law. Although Gavin didn’t manage a soaring flight, Lesley thoroughly enjoyed her flights
 |
| Lesley and Gavin after their flights. |
The next visitor was Linda Mumford. Linda had a flight of 20 minutes, climbing to 2000ft at cloudbase with Hugh.
 |
| Linda thumbs up after her flight. |
The final visitor to fly with Hugh was Max Harmer. During their flight, Hugh asked max would he like to go to cloudbase in a good climb. Max said yes and was very happy as Hugh counted the height out in hundreds of feet until they reached cloudbase at 2400ft. Max was continually taking photos throughout the flight.
 |
| Max and Hugh back on terra firma. |
We had a returning trial flight candidate today to make use of the three months temporary membership before hopefully joining as a full member. Freddie Colton is hoping to Join the RAF to undertake pilot training, but if that is not possible hopes to be a weapons engineer as a fallback. He had three flights with me and during a 28 minute soaring flight was starting to master all three controls with some nice coordinated turns.
 |
| Freddie ready to go (old archive picture) |
Our solo pilots enjoyed some soaring too. Steve Fletcher (Open Cirrus) 1 hour 31 minutes, Malcolm Wilton-Jones (Twin Astir) 1 hour 8 minutes and Jamie Steel (K13) 50 minutes.
 |
| Steve’s view at cloudbase. |
So with only a small crew today we achieved 23 flights and some very happy visitors. Thank you to all for their help today.
No comments:
Post a Comment