Thursday 8th December - Summertime

Ian M. is on a three week visit to Gariep Dam, in the Free State Province of South Africa, to fly Steve's (from Dunkeswell) Ventus M. He has promised to keep us up to date with his exploits. First day - site check.

"Finally made it Gariep Dam, first day at airfield today, very hot 29c, had chat with camp instructor and a site check was arranged. You will not believe this but we took off at 1400hrs in a Nimbus4 and climbed to 16000ft which was still some way below cloudbase, we then set off on a sight seeing tour over vast areas of totally unlandable terrain but spectacular scenery, we landed some 5hrs later after flying a total of 508km which included a 100km final glide, it is hard to contemplate just how good conditions can get as nobody thought today was a particularly good day but it was one hell of a site check."