All
available gliders were out early and the second August course was soon
under way followed closely by the the Wednesday club.
What a fantastic afternoon!
after a changeable morning with little soaring the weather changed
quickly and dramatically after lunch.
Pete St in 230 followed the NW/SE streets downwind first to Beaminster and then back and forwards for 217km, Eric in G29, Jeff
T in 380 and Peter B in K6 all had long local soaring flights. Pete & Jill in OL enjoyed the purple heather on Exmoor turning Wimbleball and Barnstaple.
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| Cloud streets as far as the eye can see, and IS28 returned from travels to Belgium |
There was the usual quota of trial lessons.
The cloud streets set up giving easy soaring up to over 4,000ft the two course K21s were still soaring until after 6.00pm. - JSt
Junior Nationals - Lasham
Day 5, a 300km task was set, and at the start this seemed very possible.
Cloudbase was at 3200ft by 11am and rose to about 4500ft throughout the day. The first 50km to the first TP took far too long as my pda decided to
fail on me and I wasted a lot of time getting it to work. The next 70km
to the north went well with some good lines of lift, but by the time I
had turned the TP, it had all died and gone south - so back into scratching
mode... I got up to cloudbase eventually and went all the way back
south and then cut west to avoid a big blue gap near Upavon. By this time
all the decent climbs had gone, I was on glide to base but was told to
push back north to complete the 80km remaining of the task, after some
very long glides and weak climbs I decided to call it a day, but I left
that decision a bit late and just couldn't get back on glide so ended up
in a field about 15km to the north of Lasham. - Liam
Pocklington - Day 4
Pocklington - Day 4
JB and Nick Jones launched into
a promising sky and headed west to York en route for Sutton Bank (first
TP) . However, having being lured into a big blue patch by one dodgy
looking cloud we found ourselves on base leg for a nice stubble field
when the
vario perked up and we spurned the approach in favour of a climb back
to cloud base! (E by gum, that were one 'ell of a climb!)
On to Sutton Bank and from there headed to North Allerton arriving in the rain:-(
We thought we were dooomed so
headed off on track anyway -nothing ventured nothing gained - and after
half an hour of scratching finally won the sympathy of a passing buzzard
who kindly showed us where the thermal really was! We managed to climb
back
to cloud base and headed for home to learn that we had achieved the
accolade of 'Best Wood' and 4th overall.
.JPG) |
| Barbeque weather |
After derigging we were treated
to the culinary delights of J P's BBQ Kung Poa Chicken - an awesome
concoction despite his consumption of a bottle of red during its
creation. - JB
