Friday 5th April - Portmoak

The DSGC spearhead group left North Hill on a freezing Thursday evening, hugely thankful to the group that derigged the DG 505 and Junior in arctic conditions earlier that day . Night stop over north of Birmingham with a 4 am rolling start on Friday  meant that they arrived at Portmoak by 10:30 having stopped for breakfast in the Lake District.
Forms signed and logbooks checked, we set about rigging the DG.  Ron and Dan had arrived earlier and had already rigged the ASH. We decided to have an aerotow as the winch launch point was cluttered by two groups of pilots from "down South" .

At first it was a real struggle but once you got established the thermals were cracking.  Ron and Dan disappeared towards the mountains followed by Simon L and Jimbob.

The air was clear, crisp and very cold especially at height, even colder for Simon as his trousers were ripped apart when Jimbob raised the under carriage , the lever tore into Simon's very expensive C&A corderoy  pants, with a girly scream he declared that he has had them from the 70s. He was last seen heading towards the clubhouse with his pants looking like a New York rapper . (ed: pics?)
The catering was excellent , which was a relief as this year the Staff were all new , they even put chocolate sprinkles on Our ice creams!
Tomorrow's forecast looks really good ( it will probably rain then! ) Ron is planning a trip around Ben Nevis, with the rest of the group arriving the day will be filled with check rides etc.
The forecast for the week is changing by the hour , if the wind stays East and dry we could have some good days with streets tempting us into the mountains , I promised to kiss a frog if I got there , lets hope I regret saying that ! (ed: we'll definitely want a photo of that)