With no flying on Friday and only a few flights yesterday I was expecting a busy day today. This was quickly proven with eight trainees arriving. This caused me to make the decision to only undertake two training flights each and see how the day progressed. A moderate easterly breeze which was due to veer as the day progressed and initial clear sky saw three privateers to join the club K13 and Puchacz at the launch point.
The first launch with Misha Skochko and myself launched at 9:42. Fairly soon after the launch we were spotted climbing in some unexpected wave. A 27 minute flight climbing to 2500ft gave Misha plenty of time on the controls mastering speed control and gentle turns. On the descent we took the opportunity to explore stall symptoms and Misha's first gentle stalls.
 |
| Misha climbing on his first wave flight. |
 |
| View of airfield from 2500ft. |
Next to see if the wave was still there, was Vicktor. Not to be outdone by son Misha, he was soon climbing through 2000ft in weak wave.
 |
| Vicktor climbing through 2000ft. |
Whilst we were in the air, we were joined by Scratch in his Standard Cirrus during a one hour flight.
 |
| Scratch's view of Tavistock. |
Shortly after, the wind veered and the wave disappeared and was replaced by some weak thermal activity. The other trainees Steve lesson, Edward Nicholson, Freddie Purkiss, Aiden Hughes, Matthew Stone and Ray Boundy each enjoyed flights, but only of circuits or slightly longer.
Longest flight of the day was achieved by John Allan in his Mini Numbus. He said:-
"It took me 14mins of battling a very erratic turbulent thermal to gain the 300ft, to reach my launch height again, then it gradually got better, max height was around 4000ft but gradually got more murky up at cloud base, where there were some reasonable cloud streets up and down the edge of the moor. Finally gave up when the visibility got too poor to stay up high."
 |
| John's view over Black Down. |
 |
John's murky view near cloudbase.
|
Sorry for no photos of the trainees. Thank you to all at the club helping to get through the list of trainees.
Peter Howarth
No comments:
Post a Comment