Dartmoor Gliding News - Saturday 29th March 2025

The weather situation today was complicated and timing would be everything, Just off the coat to the north was a front moving towards us. The wind was forecast to be 8 knots SW strengthening as the day progressed. In reality the wind was much more south than that and flying from the East end we had an almost 90degree cross wind.

The early conditions at the launchpoint

RASP was predicting a good thermal day so the club fleet of 2 K13's, `Puchacz and Astir was joined by a Libelle, Mini Nimbus, and DG300 from the privateers. In the event, the day was nothing like as good as RASP predicted and the longest flight was just 33 minutes By Malcolm in the Astir CS77. Timing was everything and if you were lucky then you could hitch a lift under a passing cloud to extend your flight.

A  K13 soaring

The partial eclipse was just visible through the cloud cover.

We welcomed 3 visitors from Culdrose today. We were also joined by friends Ian Smith and Rhianna Jones both attending for One Day Courses, They both completed their first halves of their courses but the crosswind strengthened markedly after lunch and we need to curtail the rest of their course as the cross wind was out of limits for visitor flying. They will return to complete their courses at a later date. 

Myself with Rhianna and Ian

The cloud thickened and lowered as the day continued as the front approached from the north. By the time we left the airfield it had actually started to rain.

The strengthening cross wind with 8/8 cloud cover

Zack was spotted trying out a K6 for size - ambitions???

Last flight ready to launch

Steve