Dartmoor Gliding News - Saturday 23rd March 2024

Finally a Saturday when It is not raining and the airfield has dried out enough to fly. It was windy but more or less straight down the runway so the option was taken to get some flying in.

A pair of K13's waiting for action

Not the most encouraging sky but flyable

The day progressed with everyone flying with CFI Rick. The flying was interrupted from time to time as passing showers moved through bringing quite turbulent gust fronts with them. There was signs thermal lift but the very strong upper winds were tearing them apart making them pretty much unusable.

Passing showers treated us to a rainbow or two

Sheltering in the bus.

Three flights shared longest of the day with just 8 minutes. Alasdair Barclay, Andy Davey both with Rick in the back and Scratch with Valerie in the front seat.

Rick and Andy getting ready

And off they go

Valerie waiting for her flight

Meanwhile back in the hangar Gavin, Adam and I took advantage of the conditions to add  Dartmoor Gliding Livery to both the Puchacz and Astir CS77, Gavin and I then carried out a review of the Puchacz factory weight and balance adding the BGA concession allowances and then simplifying the cockpit Placards and loading charts. 

Bit of team work to get the decals on straight
( Gavin is supervising from behind the camera)

The finished job

And here's one we did earlier

The day finished with the gliders getting a wash and returned safely to the hangar.

A determined day.

Steve