With a Wednesday washout, Thursday was forecast to be reasonable and was very nearly over-subscribed. There was a lot of cloud to start with but plenty high enough, flying started before 10:00am.
There was a mixture of launch failure practice, training and check flights before the soaring started. The cloud street to the south became within easy reach of the winch launch and Gordon B in K13 and the Juniors joined the two-seater training for 1 hour flights. A few private owners joined in - Pete St in 230, Joe in 877, Paul M in HMS - but struggled to get away from the winch as the street spread out and died. Peter Stap had flown in from Newquay in his Cessna after his winter hibernation, and after some blue card checks with Mark, he took an aerotow in JZK further south to the visible sea breeze front, and recorded the longest flight of the day 1:37. Mark put out a call - Any more aerotows to the lift? and 230 on his way down from the second winch pushed straight to the aerotow queue. Aston and Paul took the final launches before lunch and both soared over lunch.
After a short break, there was some urgency to get the two-seater training through the long flying list, and the Junior pilots kindly gave priority on the cables to the two-seaters . A busy day with 59 launches in all and a lot of walking back up the field. Belated congratulations to Jonathan 877 for (very quietly) achieving his Silver height last Thursday. - J&P
