A Rasp forecast of light north westerly winds and star rating improving through the afternoon it looked like it could be a reasonable soaring day. Skysight for once agreed with Rasp, but some of our Sunday Soarers must know more about forecasting than more professional organisations as there was only a small turnout today. However, we set about getting ready to fly and also await our visitor today for early afternoon.
Richard ever optimistic as usual believed the forecasts and rigged his Discus ready for an out and return to Glastonbury (big fields and no campers this weekend) via Plymouth East.
First to fly with me was Peter Hamilton. Four flights gave him chance to consolidate his flying giving him more consistent judgement and skillset on his journey to re-soloing.
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| Peter's ready to fly. |
A soaring flight of 22 minutes later in the day left Peter very happy with his days flying.
Next to fly with me was Andrew Downing. During his four flights saw good improvement in control coordination. Also he was starting to get to grips with using airbrakes and elevator to maintain the reference point during the approach phase.
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| Andrew doing pre-flight checks. |
A soaring flight later in the day gave him his first views of the south Cornwall coastline, north Devon Coastline and a view past north Hessary mast towards Torbay. This was Andrews first soaring flight and also gave us opportunity to explore stalling and symptoms of approaching the stall. Another first for Andrew. He was very happy with progress today.
Our visitor Sharon Stears-Tremlett arrived with her husband. Duty IFP, Phil Hardwick took her through the necessary briefings and took her for her flights.
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| Sharon ready for her flight. |
After her flights, husband Nigel was keen to take a flight which he did later.
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| Nigel ready to go. |
Richard had meanwhile launched. He was seen climbing slowly and drifting away downwind. A while later he was seen back overhead and continued soaring in the local area for 1 hour 53 minutes. When he landed he said with only a 2500ft cloudbase drifting further downwind would have resulted in a definite field landing and retrieve, so came back to the local area to avoid this.
Adam Hoskin took the K13 for a solo flight after winching and helping at the launchpoint. Two launches with a one minute turnaround between resulted in a 22 minute soaring flight on the second.
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| Adam getting ready. |
The conditions didn't fully develop as per the forecasts, but some good flying was achieved by those at the airfield today. Thank you to all for your help today.
Peter Howarth
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