After yesterday's gales from Storm with no name....deja vu? Thursday's forecast was looking good with a sunny start, but someone forgot to turn the northerly wind off.
The gliders were walked up the field, and the first launch found more than the normal sink all round the circuit in the 20 knots gusting 35 northerly. However the second venture to the north ridge found strong bubbles of lift coming out of the gully to enable some soaring and the launch point filled up nicely.
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| Lovely cumulus streets downwind (Mark C) |
By lunchtime the wind had started to ease a little, and the cumulus that was out of reach in all directions started to form over the airfield as well.
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| Busy launchpoint (Mark C) |
Eric in ASG29 was the first to get away successfully, but with just a little low struggle initially. The DG505 had been towed back from Yorkshire yesterday (Thanks Tom & Matt) and after a rigging party this morning took a launch just before lunch with Matt and James S following Eric to the North ridge. They worked their way up to the 3000ft cloudbase flew into wind and carried on going up at 2-3 knots- topping out just over 5000ft above North Hill and way above the clouds.
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| Above the clouds (Eric) |
The afternoon continued with the wind dropping off dramatically, and all the solo pilots were able to fly the Juniors. Although the lift was hard to find and much weaker, but we managed to fly right through to sunset.
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| North Hill sunset (Mark C) |
Longest flight to Eric 3hrs 04 and 49 launches total - J&P
