Dartmoor Gliding News-Saturday 16th July 2022

 The high pressure remains, the temperatures are still building promising hot sweaty conditions. The wind was SE and light(ish) moving further to the east as the day progressed.

A Blue day

"East!" I hear you call: must be a wave day then. Well, no. There was a weak line of reduced sink and occasional 1/2 knot climb out over the valley to the east. The NW corner of Mary Tavy gave some wave enhanced thermal effects in the position where a wave entry can often be found. But, these conditions were not strong enough to maintain flights in excess of 15 minutes or so and would suit Buzz Lightyear better with some "falling with style".

Rick would be dumb without his hands and arms

David Archer on final approach

So, we were going to need to find thermals in the high pressure environment that we found ourselves in. This happened at about 1:30 when some very tight thermals could be found close enough to the airfield for us to exploit. Tricky to find these with no clouds to give us a clue but visiting known thermal "hotspots" eventually paid off with both of the K13's and the Open Cirrus managing about 1/2 hour. Ace of the base with a flight of 1:02 was Adam Hoskin in his bright yellow K6CR. If there ever was a glider made for today's thermals the K6 is it. This very agile sailplane can turn in remarkably small circles.

We hosted two One Day Courses today. Jim Steel and Martin Smith both completed their course and left us with smiles on their faces.

Martin Smith and significant other

ODC candidate Jim

Jim found a nice shady spot while not flying

While all the flying fun was going on, there was plenty of other work going on, Steve Fletcher recovered the K13 trailer from the east end ready to take the ex Perranporth K7M "The Spirit of Cornwall" to it's new home at the Cornwall Aircraft Museum in Newquay tomorrow. Dave Bourchier spent a considerable amount of his day servicing this trailer adjusting brakes and ensuring the lights etc were fully operational.

David working on the K13 trailer

Our thanks, as always, to all the ground crew without whom none of us could fly. Special mention to Heather for driving the cable retrieve all day in the HOT conditions and Scratch who seeded to spend most of his day on the winch.

Steve