The forecast gave a cold front clearance overnight with a possible weak occlusion at lunchtime in the freshening north westerly wind. So it was a day of two halves....
After a pitch inspection, although it might have just been possible to winch, it was decided that as there were still some soggy patches, the airfield would be saved for the weekend. - So aerotows only again.
The morning started crisp and bright with a street to the north raining continuously but the airfield stayed clear until just about 12:00 when the cloud lowered. In the event there wasn't much rain, but there was a complete change of airmass after the early lunch with not much in the way of cloud and a shift in the wind to almost northerly.
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| Dark clouds to the north just before lunchtime (David C) |
The first flights after lunch found some rather nasty sink, with Ron and Chris M making a hasty retreat in DG505, but Mike F was not so lucky in the Junior ....
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| The Junior was moved to the gate (Mark C) |
......and had to make the first outlanding of the year on the rifle range. A team quickly volunteered for the rather muddy retrieve.
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| Retrieving LRD from the rifle range (David C) |
Quite surprisingly, mid-afternoon the aerotow-only launches started finding some wave over quite a large area between the airfield and the motorway. Longest flights of the day were Chris W and Ray D in DG505 at 62mins and Pete H and Geoff L in K21 at 58 mins. 20 flights in total with Stu grabbing a few tows at the end of the day from Mark.
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| K21 with some new signage (Jill) |
The gliders were all washed and put away just before the water started to freeze outside the hangar. - J&P
