Starting
out with a deceiving cloud base, the instructors guessed its height,
this admittedly came to be a bit of a shock as our 'seven thousand feet
cloud' turned out to be 700 feet on the first launch. Off to a good start
and with most of us up there today being Devon lads we decided to
make the most of the opportunity and get into gear. Albeit without
the aerotows for the spin checks that I was looking forward too.
Many
simulated launch failures later and having been to Antarctic and back (it was a bit cold!) we all decided
to go in for lunch hoping that the nice sunny big wide gap in the
cloud, upwind of us would drift over North Hill, clearing the skies. “You may have said to yourself that this would had been too much to ask!”
Well...that’s right of course! So having been motivated by my nice warm
ham, egg and chips it was time to get back out and get every last bit of
flying.
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| Just a little murky at cloudbase (Ross Pratt) |
A
few icy hours later and I find myself soaring the ridge with John Pursey at cloudbas e- which was an experience in itself. However picking up some lift in
front of the west ridge we pushed out, finding a small, sunny spot between
the gloom, where the cloud lifted and thinned. I saw BLUE, blue sky and
sun, so this was where it was all happening! 1700 hours comes and the
sun is setting so its probably a good idea to go in to circuit and think
about going down. But now it’s warmer???? Just 18 launches today, but our longest flight was 58 minutes - Ross Pratt
