Dartmoor Gliding News - Sunday 28th August 2022

 A moderate easterly wind, sunny conditions greeted the sunday soarers with one question, would there be wave? The calendar showed we were expecting 3 x single flight visitors and with five trainees today would be a relatively steady day flying.

Following a launch point briefing, the first visitor arrived. Nigel Mee was greeted by duty BI Gavin Short. On inspection of his voucher eagle eyed Gavin noticed that it was for a One Day Course. After consulting with me, we decided that we would be able to fulfil this especially as Nigel had been trying to fly with us for 3 years.

Sunday Soarers ready to fly,

Nigel Mee finally in a glider.

Nigel receiving his certificate.

Nigel thoroughly enjoyed his day with us and it was worth waiting for. with 1 hour 15 minutes under his belt.

At this point I must apologise to the trainees and club members at the club today, I was very remiss with taking any pictures around the club and hence most of the pictures in this blog are of our visitors.

First to fly with me was Peter Hamilton. On our first flight we entered the circuit only to encounter some heavy sink. With Peter not recognising this I took control and landed down the field giving a valuable lesson to Peter. On the second flight a similar situation developed, but was noticed by Peter and he executed a similar short circuit landing down the field. The third flight after soaring in some weak wave/thermal, we started the circuit higher than previous which enabled Peter to fly a more conventional circuit.

K13 waiting to launch

Next to fly with me was Freddie Colton. The first flight was a 18 minute soaring flight in more thermic lift. The second flight was aborted during the launch. Freddie was hot happy with the speed and made a positive decision to abort it and land straight ahead down the field. Well done for taking a positive decision. Three more flights later in the afternoon saw him execute a go around launch failure and two good circuits. Keep up the good work Freddie.

K13 off on another flight

Our two junior trainees Ollie Hunt and Riley Powell-Thomas who are progressing at a similar rate looked at slip and skid whilst generally practicing good flying and circuit planning. Keep up the good work.

Our next visitors arrived. David Parsons had been given the experience flight as a birthday present by partner Susan Milward who decided to join him by taking a flight as well. David enjoyed a 15 minute flight whilst Susan had an 8 minute flight.

David being watched by Susan.

David and Susan receiving their certificates.

Colin Boyd and Ed Borlase arrived at the launch point having carried out the annual inspection of Ed's K6. They both had well earned flights in the K8. It must have been a K8 day, as earlier in the day Adam Hoskin managed 33 minutes in the weak wave followed by Martin Broadway who eeked out a 1 hour 3 minutes in what appeared to be a funnel of weak wave between the club and Tavistock to claim flight of the day.

As the day came to a close we were treated to a spectacular mackerel sky to the west.

Mackerel sky.

Thank you to Adam and Martin for sharing the winching today. Also everybody else at the club for keeping a steady launch rate all day.

Peter Howarth