Dartmoor Gliding News - Saturday 26th July 2025

The question today was whether the weather ( pun intended) was going to play ball. Arriving at the airfield it looked hopeless with low clouds, drizzle interspersed with rain. Alisdair would describe this as "dreich", but more of him later. There is an occluded front overhead. Our resident weatherman, Andy Davey, was insistent that this would pass by midday after which he expected a clearance that would eventually give some usable soaring conditions. His reputation was on the line.

The morning was spent with lectures from CFI Rick separated with the inevitable cups of tea. About midday the clearance did indeed arrive and suddenly we were treated to blue sky,  3/8 cloud and the wind initially just west of north but due to go further west as the day wore on.

This is the sky that we were presented with after thew clearance came.

Streeting to the SE.
The curve around a blue hole is interesting

Visitors today were Mike Weymouth for a One Day Course and Mark Tucker Katie Clark for Air Experience flights. Mike has a lot of staying power and waited all morning with us but still managed to complete his Course with the help of plenty of soaring.

Mike Weymouth

Katie Clark

Soaring ? Yes, from 1.30pm it was possible to sustain flights in the 15 minute range. By 3pm the sky was full of thermals leading to Andy Davey flying for 2hrs 4 minutes in his Ventus CT for the man of the match award. It was the usual DGS fare with the need to work hard low down to "get away" followed by " it was easier to stay up than come down" above 1800ft or so. Cloud bases were a little variable but around 2500ft. 

This allowed several trainees to experience 30 minute soaring flights in the K13 and the aforementioned Mike Weymouth completed the second half of his One Day Course with a glorious romp around the local area with a flight of 49 minutes, This flight was only terminated through judicious us of the airbrakes.

K13's at the launchpoint
( The Puchacz is landing behind)

Puchacz touching down at the marker

What of Alisdair Barclay?  He flew with Rick in the Puchacz and put the soaring conditions to good use by climbing high enough to finish off the spinning exercises required to complete his Bronze "C". Well done Alisdair.

Rick congratulates Alsidair,

With the last flight at 7pm we made the best of the day.

Last flight of the day - solo by Rick and ....

... off he goes into the evening sunshine.

Steve