All the gliders were out early, a lot of club members turned up to fly and the two seater list was long, John S & John S managed to get through the list with help from Roly and Stu, the two Juniors also spent all day soaring.
Pete D flew his Skylark 4 for nearly 3 hrs for his second Cross Country Endorsement soaring flight and there was a long list of private gliders on various tasks. - JS.
The cross country pilots sat around for a long time waiting for the top cover to clear to allow some heating through, eventually around midday it did and quite rapidly abundant thermals to 3000'QFE were to be had. A 220km task to Okehampton and Dorchester was set and six gliders set off (Ron/Dan ASH25 711, Phil ASW20 611, Matt ASW20 M5, Rowan Libelle CLM, JB Ventus KJW and Pete/Jill Duo OL). The first leg was quite a battle with a strong into wind component and several reported "sticky" points. Once round the turn it just got better and better, except for those who insisted that there would be a sea breeze front and headed for the coast - it was a lot better to stay on track, a few miles inland.
The cliffs of Matt's epic video - from somewhat higher!
All made it round in about three hours, except Rowan who decided that one trip away from home was enough and headed for NHL half way down the second leg, and unfortunately missed his Silver height by 100'.
Bridport, Chesil Bank and Portland in the distance
Pete (Discus 230) must have worked doubly hard all morning, as he managed to get the afternoon off to run a quick 100km run to Eaglescott and back. He reported brilliant conditions out to our northwest and it looked good all the way into Cornwall, the 220km could easily have been extended to over 300km as the streets stretched over the NW horizon for a couple of hours after finishing. A brilliant day for what is probably the end of the season - but we can all hope for more. Interestingly only three Clubs posted cross countries on the National Ladder for today, Portmoak with some very long and fast wave flights, Lasham along the south coast into Kent and North Hill - well done us.
