With Wednesday’s flying day cancelled in advance due to the predicted strong southerly crosswind, the decision was made to try and make the most of the promising RASP forecast for Thursday.
Duty instructor Mike Sloggett’s aim to get the first few flights in before 10am didn’t materialise but we were close! Mike, joined by Pete Smith, Andy Pincombe and Chris Wool used the Perkoz, DG505 and the K21 to work through the dual list. Various people had different goals to achieve during the day from working through their training cards, cable breaks, aerotow failures as well as just flying for fun. Camp Commandant (CFI) Mark Courtney was in attendance and under his eagle eye kept us on our toes with his unique motivational words of encouragement to keep things flowing!
From the start, the sky showed promise with the first couple of flights having 20 mins although there was still a relatively low cloudbase. Soaring conditions came and went throughout the day as the sky cycled and it needed an amount of luck to connect with a thermal. Some clouds worked whilst other similar looking ones didn’t. At one point the ‘Soaring Gods’ turned off the thermal switch and all the gliders dropped out of the sky simultaneously causing an unusual sight of five gliders all on circuit at once. It all passed without incident and the airfield was quickly cleared.
Five private gliders (380, FAJ, 477, HES and 877) all took advantage of the conditions and managed decent flights. Most commented that the clouds to the NW in a SW wind worked better than staying to the south. Both Juniors were kept occupied during the day with a few flights over an hour. Dan Johns had one of the last flights of the day after going solo for the first time in few years despite spending the intervening time flying dual with dad Ron.
It’s was a great day for this time of the year, not what you expect for October! – Mark Layton
