Dartmoor Gliding News-Saturday 10th December 2022

Winter has definitely arrived. Driving to the airfield I could see a little sprinkling of snow on the higher Cornish hills. Dartmoor seemed to be clear but the local radio station was talking about substantial snowfalls almost everywhere except here. The heavy frost lent a certain charm to the runway.

The chilly route to the runway

and a few minutes later- So much for no precipitation

FGR wait for attention

The briefing was suggested light winds and no precipitation ( really ?? ). K13 G-DCCY was taken to the east end and after a test flight ( just back on the fleet from maintenance ) is was game on. 

Snowing at the launchpoint

The cloudscape was dramatic all day

CCY launching ahead of the next showeer

Interesting clouds

Steve Lesson, Yiannis Houlis and Dave Archer took advantage of  Rick Wiles to push their training forward. This had to be done between the very wintery showers. So much for no precipitation then. 

Getting ready again

In the hangar, K13 G-CFGR had it's final fettling before returning to the fleet after an impressively efficient C of A / ARC. Team working seems to be paying off in this area.

I made my way to the launch point and after drying the gliders again thought that I would have a quick circuit in the K8. The next snow shower was not too far away. In fact, I released from the winch at 700 ft to avoid the next snow shower. Interestingly there was a band of lift just in front of the shower. This gave me several minutes of entertainment before I headed off to circuit timing it so that I did not need to approach through the snow. Great fun.   

K8 on approach

Ice on the cleaning cloths

Steve