A small group of members gathered at the airfield. With a forecast of a light south-westerly wind and rasp predicting afternoon thermals optimism for a reasonable days flying was good. The airfield and aircraft were readied in swift time, leaving time for a quick tea and coffee before we flew.
First to fly with me was Mark Elliott. With Mark nearing his target to go solo launch failures was the order of the day. After a demo of a high go around failure followed by a surprise straight ahead failure and finally flying his own high go around, both well flown by Mark he took a full launch for a more relaxing flight. After trying to find some lift he made the decision to start his circuit. He made a poor decision to cross behind the winch to fly his circuit on the opposite side of the airfield. This resulted in him getting low in circuit, but without any prompting, realised this and he turned in early to land down the field. Well done Mark.
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| Mark very happy after his flights. |
Today's duty IFP was Gavin Short. His first visitor Mark Nightingdale arrived.
Mark came to the club from Yelverton
with his wife, and within five minutes of their arrival rendezvoused with
friends who were visiting from Brisbane, Australia and had travelled down from
Sussex that morning. Such is the international draw of Dartmoor Gliding!
Mark works in medical IT and enjoyed two short flights with Gavin, which were a
present from his wife. He especially liked the sensation of the winch
launch.
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| Mark with Gavin. |
The only other trainee at the club today was Freddie Colton. The first flight was a demonstration of the zig-zag circuit to improve his judgement around the circuit. During the five flights he had through the day he was making better decisions and flying better circuits. |
| Top gun Freddie ready to fly. |
Gavin's next visitor was Peter Pratt.
Peter came to fly with us with
a trial flight voucher that was a present from his daughter to celebrate his
forthcoming 80th birthday. Congratulations and Happy Birthday
Peter. He was accompanied by his wife and extended family; if you have
been married for 58 years then a large family probably is a given. Eight
family members were in support of Peter which entailed multiple trips to ferry
them to and from the launch point. Peter had enjoyed a career in the
civil service. When he heard of Gavin's naval service he revealed that he too
had served; 12 years in the Royal Corps of Signals. Peter thoroughly enjoyed an extended soaring flight,
climbing some 800 feet and taking in sights of the north and south coast,
Tavistock where he and his wife live, and Plymouth on distant the horizon where
his extended family hail from. We wish Peter well in the remainder of his
special birthday celebrations. |
| Peter celebrating his 80th birthday. |
The solo pilots started launching as conditions seemed to be improving. Martin Broadway (Libelle) took three launches ti finally get away for a flight of 1 hour 11 minutes. Phil Hardwick (DG300) was luckier and got away first time for a flight of 1 hour 37 minutes. Richard Roberts (Discus) declared an optimistic out and return to Taunton. This was his summary of the flight:-
Launched
as soon as the weather would allow, made headway between 2200-3000 ft.
Made it to north east of Credition, weather changed , I didn’t adjust my flying
, got low , landed in a farmers field, met some lovely people, waited for a
retrieve, packed up , came home. Sometimes that’s just gliding. But….you never
know if you don’t try.
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| Richard about to launch. |
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| Hard work this landing out. |
Although he didn't make it back to the airfield, Richard claimed flight of the day with just over 2 hours.Colin Boyd had a couple of late flights in the K8. One of which was 17 minutes trying to make use of a convergence. Andy Davey (Libelle) launched at a similar time and was able to make better use of the convergence for a flight of 1 hour 5 minutes.
Thank you to all at the club. A small group who made the best of the day for 21 flights with an averang time of 22 minutes.
Peter Howarth
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