Dartmoor Gliding News - Saturday 1st June 2024

The ridge of high pressure that has brought some settled weather for us is still here. This may well suppress the thermals and it will certainly make the visibility poor with dust trapped under the inversion. The wind is forecast for just east of north, ie. straight across the runway but at a manageable 8 knots or so. Perhaps the north ridge will provide some entertainment or at least assist with thermal production.

The cross wind and hazy sky with quite a bit of light top cover

The solo pilots fancied the look of the day so there was quite a lot of rigging activity early on including an appearance by the Twin Astir, Mini Nimbus, various Libelles and the DG300 all joining the club aircraft of 2*K13's, Puchacz, and Astir CS77.

The pair of K13s ready to go

A Libelle

DG300 with Mini Nimbus behind and a Libelle in the distance

Another Libelle ( Club model this time ) emerges from it's trailer

Our visitor programme was fully subscribed today with Nick Grech-Cini, a very keen flight sim user, attending for a One Day Course and Fiona Tomkinson, Roger Rowland and Zac Smith all presenting with 2 flight vouchers. A real team effort saw myself,  Phil Hardwick and Scratch sharing the instruction. All our visitors enjoyed some soaring and all were smiling at the end of the day.

Nick

Fiona

Roger

Zac

It was soarable today if you were patient but the visibility was generally poor. Longest flight was by John Allan in the Mini Nimbus who managed 1hr 17minutes. The Puchacz managed 30 minutes and did K13 FGR. and there were quite a few extended circuits in the 10 to 15 minute range. With the wind from the north several of us made good use of the Stub runway practicing short field landings to brighten up our day.

The Twin Astir launching

John's hazy view from the Mini Nimbus at 3000ft above the airfield

Club training was handled today by Rick Wiles who was kept reasonably busy by Jamie, Viktor, Valerie and Freddie.

A good club day.

Steve