What a difference a day makes!!. Summer on Wednesday, Winter on Thursday. The Thursday crew arrived to low cloud and fog on the field with a cold brisk WNW wind. RASP promised a weak front going through about lunch time and an improving afternoon and so it turned out although the wind steadily increased during the afternoon resulting in some sporting approaches and raising the flag colour from Yellow to Blue.
The first flight took off at 10:13 with a 1500ft cloudbase and didn’t last more than a few minutes but reported some positive lift from the west ridge. The morning progressed with Card check flights, simulated launch failures and general training. All short flights. One Junior managed 21 minutes on a very weak west ridge just before the approaching front arrived. After lunch conditions improved considerably, and extended flights became the norm however the wind continued to strengthen and by late afternoon the landing approach became quite boytrose. The longest flight was Pete Startup in 230, Discus, two hours seven minutes, reaching the dizzy heights of 2,560ft AGL.
Twenty nine flights, in total 10 hours 17 minutes airborne. Well worth the effort of waiting for the good weather to arrive. Everyone on the list few. Many thanks to Mike Sloggett for running the day, Assisted by Martin Woolner, who did a lot of walking back from launch failure training, Ron Johns and Chris Wool.
A very cold but successful day with all kit safely away by 5:30 ready for the Instructors Meeting. – John Borland
