Thursday 14th January

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.
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 ....
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.
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.
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