A light northwesterly breeze and a 4.5 star rating on RASP saw a keen set of privateers rigging. Steve Fletcher (Open Cirrus), John Osment (Std Cirrus), Ed Borlase (K6) & Sean Westrope (Libelle) would be joined by club gliders K13, Twin Astir, K8 & Astir 77.
Chris Bryning requested a quick check flight as part of SPL recency, so we took the first flight and then Chris and I could work through the trainee list. Chris would first fly with Jess Nicholson and I would fly with Rowan Guest. Jess would work on trimming the glider, general handling and starting to fly the circuit whilst Rowan would concetrate on speed control in the circuit and on approach.
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| Jess happy with her flying. |
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| Rowan getting ready. |
Chris would next fly with our returning junior Freddie Purkiss. A couple of circuits and a launch failure, Chris was happy for freddie to have a solo flight in the K13. I gave the back seat of the Twin Astir to duty BI Phil Harwick as our first visitor had arrived. Chris Morris's grand daughter, Chloe Weaver had come to see what grandad gets up to.
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| Freddie and Chris ready for check flights. |
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| Chloe being moved into position. |
The early flights saw a cloud phenomenon over the area. Although not a typical example, Kelvin- Helmholtz cloud caused by one air mass moving across another could be seen towards the moors.
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| Kelvin-Helmholtz clouds. |
Phil worked his way through the other visitors as they steadily arrived. Harry Buckingham and Harold Critchley both arrived with their families to observe their flights.
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| Harry Buckingham with Phil. |
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| Harold and dad with Phil. |
The last trainee, Misha Skochko had four flights with me. The last one we changed the landing area and Misha landed the K13 on the stub runway. Well dine Misha.
The privateers had tried launching throughout the day. The only real success of the day was Steve Fletcher in his Open Cirrus who managed 48 minutes.
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| Steve preparing to fly. |
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| A parched airfield and area seen by Steve. |
Other solo pilots flew the K8 and Astir 77. Malcolm W-J and Chris Bryning each had a couple of flights in the Astir and Freddie was allowed to fly the K8.
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| Freddie back in the K8. |
With the day coming to an end I took the Twin Astir for a solo flight and hangar landing.
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Me launching in the Twin Astir.
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38 flights and only one soaring flight. The weather hadn't read the forecast, but all had enjoyed their days flying. Thank you to all at the club today and kept things moving smoothly.
Peter Howarth
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