A forecast for an overcast start clearing late morning to give moderate soaring conditions, I left home optimistic, but the drive to the airfield in thick fog which got worse the closer I got to Brentor. This actually proved beneficial as some of the pilots who are heading to Longmynd could prepare gliders and trailers for the trip.
The first task was to return the open trailer to the east end and bring back one of the K13 trailers so we could transfer K7-M Spirit Of Cornwall from the trailer that was going to be used to transport CCY to Longmynd. This took longer that thought as not all the fittings were in the trailer and we forgot that the trailer for the K7-M required the fuselage to be loaded before the wings. Eventually everything was sorted.
Richard disappeared to the east end to bring back the instrument cover from his Discus as it was causing reflections whilst flying. A job for his dad while Richard is away at Longmynd to paint it matt black. We thought the clubhouse was about to get a new carpet as Richard returned with a carpet on the roof of his wife's borrowed car.
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| New Carpet Delivery. |
It turned out it was for the floor of his tent at Longmynd. It was now lunchtime, but the weather was showing signs of brightening up, but not as much as the forecast suggested. So we decided to have lunch and make a decision about flying after. With sandwiches consumed and teas/coffees drunk it was thought it was bright enough to give it a go, so we got the field ready to fly.
With the aircraft at the east end, the weather decided to close in and prevent commencement of aviation. So we passed the time by cutting up some of the discarded cable along the north fence and put it into a container ready for disposal.
Eventually it was action stations and ready to commit aviation. John Smith and I got ready in the K13. Going up the launch it was evident the cloud was a lot lower than estimated. At about 650ft John abandoned the launch and executed a good launch failure to return safely back to the airfield.
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| Well that was shorter than planned. |
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| The closest Phil got to fly. |
Phil and I had rigged our Astir for a couple of re-familiarisation flights as we hadn't flown it for a while prior to taking it to Longmynd. It turned out to be a rigging and de-rigging exercise.
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| Looks better than it was. |
The assembled pilots used the trialed and tested method to help make the decision that discretion is better than valour to abandon flying and return everything to the hangar.
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| Wet fingers in the air. |
A day that achieved a lot of good work, but only one flight. Thank you to all at the club to achieve what we did achieve.
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