Well the day started with low cloud and drizzle, despite that there was a handful of optimistic members from 8:00am with the ground equipment out in readiness for the duty instructor Rowan to arrive, some had seen a good forecast 24 hours earlier so where was the sun?
Rowan Smith arrived, the gliders were DId and launching started at 9:50, with sets of keys to two trailers Stuart Procter had the difficult decision LS3 or ( LS6 in Lisa's absence) went and rigged the 3 even though it looked like it was going to be circuit bashing, but there was hope the wind would go more west.
Simon Leeson in Mark Courtney's absence stepped in to be duty tuggie - I don't think he needed too much time to think about.
Pete Startup arrived with the talk of some local soaring who also rigged followed by Wyn Davies, but by 11:30 thermals started and with a cloud base of 2500 agl it was very good locally. Pete Startup was tempted to go on the Club 100 but found the lift was only local with the best lift around Wimbleball, but the 3 private gliders were rewarded with long soaring flights.
James Flory and Paul Summers looked after the trial flights.
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| Wyn LS7 got as far as Tiverton (Wyn Davies) |
Louie Leeson now the grand old age of 14 was keen to help with the glider retrieves with his brother Oscar Leeson manning the launch point and Dad in the Tug there was quite a Leeson team on hand.
Simon Minson was on site but even with the offer of a LS flight would not put down his drill determined to hang all his new curtains in his caravan - well at least he can now shut out the view of the rain.
At lunch time, Steve Westlake took up the reins and Rowan stopped for a break, Stuart came back and took Paul up for his annual BI check and enjoyed playing 'bloggs' and said would even come back and try gliding again.
It clouded over in the afternoon and the thermals stopped back to circuits, Stuart with a little encouragement from duty launch marshall Sir Chris helped with the last couple of launches to make sure all that were there flew.
Late in the afternoon the sun finally shone and the thermals started again and were good 6 kts plus right though until the last flight which was around 18:00
Turned out not a bad day in the end thanks to all that helped to get everyone flown.- Stu (1st time blogger)
