Tuesday 30th May

This group evening consisted of three separate groups, these groups had been combined because the size of the primary group was too small at one time. The groups were: Family & friends of a colleague of mine from the USA, West Buckland School and Torbay Babbacombe Scouts.

The groups arrived one hour apart with the smallest groups first.

Flight times were between 5 and 10 minutes, but all except two of the leaders of the scout group were able to fly before a couple of showers passed through. We waited for about half an hour before resuming, by then the scout group decided that it was a bit too late and they should take their troop home. After the showers passed a few of the group from West Buckland School were able to have second flights.

West Buckland School (Martin Bennett)

The group from West Buckland School were the keenest youth group that I have seen, they were very eager to help out as much as they possibly could and were a great credit to their school.

The good precedent set by the school group was followed by the scout group who were also very keen to help where they could.

Torbay Babbacoombe Scouts (Martin Bennett)

Was the evening a success? The scout group leader’s disappointment at not flying was not entirely convincing, but the look of excitement and joy on the faces of all who did fly was very convincing. It was a privilege for me and I am sure all the instructors and other helpers to support such appreciative customers. So yes, the evening was a great success.

DSGC helpers (Martin Bennett)

Finally, thanks to all who helped out on the evening. - Martin Bennett

Sunday 28th May

We began the day with Simon Leeson duty instructor and set up at the West end of the field with a Junior and K21. Lizzie Westcott, and then Rob Rand managed the bubble, Roy Boddy winching, Barbie tugging and we had just enough people with the whole of the Carter family pitching in to operate. Dave Weeks, Lizzie and Ellie Carter had some check flights then flew the Junior. 

The Junior was kept busy (Lizzie Westcott)

 The morning Mile high trial flight was flown by Simon but at midday we received a note from JB to say he was delayed for the afternoon DI slot.  A call to the clubhouse asking for help was answered by Guy who agreed to step into the breach.

Neil Carter did a marvelous job selling the club, chatting with a large group of walkers passing by, some of whom said they would definitely be back to have a trial flight. 

We broke for a late lunch at between 2 and 3 and then had some light rain spots.  No one wanted to fly again so the hangars were repacked and we were all relaxing by 4pm and marveling at the clouds as the front began to develop in the west.  16 flights  but all fairly short.  If I had thought I would have included a picture! - Rob Rand and  Ray Dodd

Saturday 27th May

It was a foggy start after a night of "lights" but not much actual rain fell. Everyone hung on for the forecast clearance at lunchtime. We used the time productively with more briefings on the Exeter Airspace Change Proposal and some useful discussion. 

In the afternoon there was a good clearance with a fresh westerly wind and with the two-seater list full of check flights of various colours, Duty Instructor Phil Morrison ended up doing a lot of walking back from the end of the field. But Phil and Josh Funnell also had the longest training flight of 26 minutes. 

Pete Startup had taken the second winch launch - but found that he had gone too early, but the next attempt was more fruitful with a 2 hour local flight.

There was a good sea-breeze convergence set up to the south leading to speculation  on the earlier discussions as to how usable that would be if  the changed airspace came about.

Thanks to Matthew Williamson for flying the two Trial lessons and then winching all afternoon, and to Peter Smith  for assisting with instructing. 

Objects in the mirror may be closer than they appear (Matthew Williamson)

After flying, Phil was up for some auto-tow practice with Matt. - J&P

Thursday 25th May

Another gorgeous North Hill morning, with wall-to-wall blue skies and warm sunshine and no wind to speak of, but what was this from the guys setting up the launch point? - it's a bit windy at the other end! Once again the 'North Hill micro-climate' was causing a challenge. Disappointingly a blue/yellow flag fluttered most of the day with large amounts of turbulent conditions and heavy sink at times. 

2-seat training continued with extra experience being gained by all, and Aston Key ( the only Blue card pilot present ) got the longest flight  in the Junior off the winch of 21 minutes finding a usable thermal off the point, but having headed back up wind found 6 down everywhere.  There was a call from one of the aerotows about some wave, but difficult to use in the blue. - J&P

And in the evening.......

A trial lesson evening for the Air Cadets tonight went very well despite the almost blue conditions. There were 10 to fly and after an inital flight with James we warned them that they might not get value for money as the flights would be short and unlikely they would get to have a go at the controls. The wind was South Easterly and quite turbulent at times but we achieved flights with everyone and they all went away very happy. James and Stirling had the last flight of the day with a little bit of planned turbulence upside down and hangar landing.

James & Stirling for hangar flight (Lisa Humphries)

On the way home the sunset was just too good not to stop for a picture.

Sunset in Devon (Lisa Humphries)

All in all a lovely evening, thanks to James Flory, James Hood, Stirling Melhuish, Aston Key, James Smart, George Sanderson, Hans Jenssen and Tim Petty. 

Lets hope we have more of this in the coming months. - Lisa Humphries

Wednesday 24th May

We are certainly getting big contrasts in the weather, today we had hot humid conditions with a mostly blue sky and hardly any wind, we set up shop in the S/W corner with the forecast giving an East wind.
To start with the cloud base was about 1,200ft with some thermal activity, as the day progressed the thermals managed to top at 2,500ft.

Roly entertaining the visitors (John Street)

We had two trial lessons today and glider pilot from the US. Pete Warren was tuggie, Jeff, Nigel and Tim Johns flew their own gliders, those who flew at the right time had reasonable soaring flights.
The order of the day was plenty to drink and a good hat, makes a welcome change from sheltering from the wind and cold! - John Street

Sunday 21st May

A boisterous, blustery wind from the south plagued the airfield all day. Before lunch it had a pronounced westerly element, so the airfield was set up accordingly. After lunch, a fickle touch of easterly began to predominate, which necessitated a change of ends.  The wind strength and turbulence ruled out trial lesson flights as a Blue Card became the order. Club members enjoyed some character building but rewarding conditions.

David Cowley practising an imaginary field landing  (Peter Smith)

There was good lift up to 2500QFE, if you could stay in the broken thermals, with the sky gradually clearing and going blue by 5pm with splendid visibility. Several members had extended flights including Peter Warren in the Junior.  David Cowley was challenged to land  from the north into an imaginary land-out field which he managed so well that we had to wait for the retrieve find us.  The Devon countryside looked glorious in the afternoon sun. 

Cloudstreets from Honiton (Peter Smith)

The only private glider out was JPT which Robin Willis-Fleming kept airborne for around two hours.

An enjoyable day, but with only 13 launches,  it would have been good to see more members taking advantage of it,  but the Duty Instructors, Ron Johns (am) and Peter Smith (pm) were nonetheless kept busy - with some help from Peter Warren and John Street. Thanks also to the DLMs: Trevor Russell and Nigel Everett who looked after the ground operations.  -  (ed: mashup from Wendy Willis-Fleming and Peter Smith and J&P)

Saturday 20th May

The bright start quickly gave way to low cloud and increasingly frequent and persistent showers. So there were a few jobs to do..... The Gator has been suitably named.

Remembering Nick with Steph (Mark Courtney)

And round the other side of the hangar......

The call had gone out for help on the water pump and treatment room project and in spite of the forecast we had an excellent turnout with willing and good humoured helpers. Nick the digger man had the biggest toys to play with, but everyone mucked in and we managed to excavate and lay a drain to carry roof and field water from the VG hangar to the main system, divert the roof water from the rear of the ground equipment hangar similarly and divert and relay the main incoming BT cable thus clearing the way for access to the void under the main hangar. This now has a concrete base for the building (large cupboard really)  which will house the distribution/pressure pump, UV and particle filter and associated pipe and switchgear currently located in a damp, gloomy and cramped subterranean cave.

Some of the crew mixing concrete in the rain (Peter Smith)

This has got the project well on the way with the only cost to the club being the materials used.

Many thanks to everyone on the crew, (not necessarily in order of appearance and please forgive me if I have missed anyone) Rowan, Allan M, Simon Collier, Simon Leeson for fetching and carrying, JB, Nick the digger and concrete mixer man, Jimbob, Paul Summers, and Tom the treasurer (who wields a mean shovel). It was a great atmosphere despite the weather. - Peter Smith

Thursday 18th May

After a day of much needed rain yesterday, Thursday had a rather mixed forecast with strong conditions but likelihood of heavy showers developing. First thing there was beautiful North Hill sunshine, but then that other local phenomena North Hill orographic cloud made it presence. So the opportunity to do some scattering of grass seed on the newly flattened areas was taken.

Thanks to Tim Petty, Ray Dodd and Aston Key for scattering grass seed (Jill Harmer)

Having carefully selected the launch run for the westerly wind (to avoid the parachute landing on the seeded areas), flying got started.

The winch launch was going all day and in between, there were quite a few aerotow checks required and two Trial Lessons  which kept Mark Courtney (Tug Pilot) busy.

Aerotow into a cumulus sky (Mike Sloggett)

Ron & Chris 711 headed off for Okehampton, but weren't particularly impressed by the conditions with spreadout and low cloud bases. 

Pete Startup 230 gave up after 2 winches launches into a blue sky and took an aerotow and then (was unusually not attempting a Club 100) was lucky to stumble upon a sea breeze convergence from Wellington to Dulverton getting to 4700ft QFE.

Congratulations to Peter March who resoloed today after 6 years with just the occasional 2-seater flight.

Congrats to Peter March solo again (John Alcroft)

Thermals were generally 2 knots with 4 knot cores, to 3,800ft locally, but during the late afternoon another convergence set up between Honiton and Wellington, and Pete Harmer and Malcolm Vest in K13 played with this for a while. Peter Smith and James Sydney in K21 also enjoyed a long flight. Nigel Everett FAJ ventured away from North Hill for the first time flew Crediton- Chard.

Convergence Honiton to Wellington (Malcolm Vest)

On the point of packing up, there were 2 last launches with James Smart in K21 on his 3rd solo of the day soaring for an hour and Ray Dodd in Junior also soaring overhead for more than an hour.

There were 49 winch launches and 11 aerotows  and no rain at North Hill -although it did get close. - J&P

Tuesday 16th May - Fayence

Today I took a launch at 11:00am and flew the local ridge until I found a thermal to cloud base 7,000 feet over the site. Headed north in fairly strong lift. 

The wind changed somewhere on the trip and I failed to understand where the lift was, so I got prepared to land at Thorame, only to come across a beautiful buzzard, who led me back to cloudbase. 

Thermal Assistant - not yet available on an Oudie! (Wyn Davies)

 There was more cloud hopping than mountain soaring to-day, with reliable lift and staggering sink in between. Had a long glide over the valley at GAP on the way to Pic de Bure, to find the  sun-warmed rocks of Mtgne de Charance to propel me back to a comfortable height, before going over the snow covered mountain. The soaring back was pleasant with a predictable sky, and plenty of height in reserve. 

Pic De Bure (Wyn Davies)

The fragrance of crushed  lavender  greets you at the end of the flight. A pleasant day out in the mountains. - Wyn and Marie

Sunday 14th May

The Club was again relatively quiet first thing  with only a few members' names on the flying list. A promising day, though rain showers were forecast for a few hours in the middle. But an enthusiastic crew unpacked the hangar with Peter Field (Duty Instructor) and John Sillett, and flying started shortly before 10:00am.

Josh Funnell and Charlie Stuckey both began their day with good flights. Then, to the surprise of everyone, Mike Sloggett actually rigged his ASW-20, launched and flew it for over 2 hours. (We were sure BBC Spotlight was going to come back for interviews given this rare occurrence!)

Devon countryside and large cloud streets developing (Mike Sloggett)

The cloud streets started lining up, so Ron Johns and Pete Warren took flight in in ASH25, then Simon Minson ASW20, Rowan Smith Libelle and Pete Startup in Discus promptly followed suit, finding convergence and showers along the way. Locally, the rain came just about as scheduled, but the worst of it bypassed the field and flying quickly resumed.  The result was booming lift but also equally daunting sink with some challenging turbulence on the approach prompting the flag colour to be changed four times during the day.

At lunchtime Guy Adams took over instructing duties and as the afternoon progressed so did the flying list. During the day the sky 're-cycled' several times providing continuing opportunities for soaring flights in Club and private gliders

Three happy Trial Lesson flights and a few family and friends aerotows kept Pete Stapleton busy in the tug.

Mike Sloggett (ASW20 ENW), Rowan Smith (Libelle CLM), Paul Medlock (DG100 HMS), Ron Johns and Pete Warren (ASH25 711), Robin Willis-Fleming (ASW27 JPM), Jeff Taberham (Mosquito 380) all enjoyed some local soaring.

Pete Startup and Simon Minson both got to Shepton Mallett, Pete managed to park at Crewkerne before getting back, but commiserations to Simon for getting caught in the sink and finding what looked to be the perfect field under a cloud street in which to land.

Simon's perfect field - but just look at the sky! (Simon Minson)

And with everyone happy from a very pleasant day's gliding, the gliders and kit were all put away shortly after 5pm... - (ed:mashup from Tom Sides, Mike Sloggett and J&P)

Saturday 13th May - Mendips

Forecasts for a potentially fresh wind from a S-SW quarter had the "Expeditions" WhatsApp group bombarded with streams of consciousness from Matt Williamson about the Quantocks or the Mendips. As the exact direction looked hard to predict the South Coast and Quantocks options were forsaken for a Saturday drive up to Halesland.

The complete absence of any discernible breeze on the way up was ignored and rigging 611 started with the windsock only just starting to point up not down the hill. By the end of a comprehensive briefing in the clubhouse the mighty Disco rolled in with the Eagle and the final flurry of rigging was completed just as the first launches started. 

The sky started to break up and the wind was a useful direction but still rather soft. Phil Morrison took an acclimatising trip round in 611 as the locals also hopped up and back. The Eagle was fortunate to launch when the sun was shining and used some weak thermals to augment the ridge and loiter, but inevitably ended up testing the height at which the ridge really worked. Constant figures of eight in a bowl near low key at a little over 300 feet were rewarded as the thermals started coming to life and the day moved up a gear. 

Phil in 611 took the thermal option and climbed away for a jaunt out to Glastonbury. After 2 and half hours, the Eagle returned to swap Nick Jones for Stirling Melhuish and allow the driver (JP) a comfort break...

JP and Nick in the Eagle (JP)

 The wind had definitely perked up and exploration of the ridge (as a ridge) was now possible. Curiously strong but broken thermals tied up with a wavy looking sky but as ever wave proper was elusive. Matt W had taken over from Phil and tamed one of the gnarly climbs to get a 6.8 kt average. He also got close to 4000 ft in a wave like beat near Wells but it collapsed almost as soon as it started. 

Wavy looking clouds over Cheddar reservoir (JP)

The weather held out to allow flying til six and with a collective 11 hours airtime the team were happy to head home and the Keepers Cottage. 

As ever a great welcome from the Mendip club, good briefings and a helpful cadre of members. Well worth a visit in a SW to S wind day and anyone flying in from NHL in a wooden glider can claim back the inter-club trophy! - JP

Saturday 13th May

A surprisingly quiet day at the club - where were you all! Anyway with a very strong south-westerly ending more southerly, the conditions were challenging for everyone. Several trial lessons including Mile High flights and usual training with Martin Woolner, Stuart Procter, Mark Courtney, James Flory and Rowan Smith, we even saw James Hood instructing this morning. 

Simon Minson flies Jean Awdas for her Trial lesson flight (Mark Courtney)

Regional Examiner Simon Minson flew a 90 year old lady who thoroughly enjoyed her flight. Ian Mitchell was busy doing navigation flights and all in all a very nice day. The afternoon wind was 90 degrees cross, so testing for all who participated, this is England after all! Great club atmosphere and definitely better than Eurovision this evening! 

The BGA hosted an Instructors A Module course at the club today, Mike Fox took a flight soaring the south ridge at the end of the day, great to be able to host these events as THE largest volunteer club in the Southwest. - Lisa Humphries

Friday 12th May - Course Week

The last day.
All good things have to come to an end and so the May course week ended with a damp and drizzly sky with cloud down to treetop height,  but after four good flying days,  nobody was complaining. The course was rounded off with ground equipment training and coffee and lunch with Zoe and Emma.

May Course (Tim Petty)

There were 109 flights and a total of 15hours 10 minutes airborne. There was a big vote of thanks to the hard working instructors Peter Smith and Mike Sloggett and all the helpers who made the week work so well. (Paul Medlock, Allan Mounce, Richard Harris and  Ian Hunt).

New members Steve Carter and Andy Williams both with previous gliding experience clocked up over 40 instructional flights between them  and vowed to return on normal club days. On the best soaring day, Wednesday Hans Jenssen completed his first one hour soaring flight. All in all a great week - John Borland

Thursday 11th May - Course Week

It was  a little murky in the morning, and after some deliberations on wind direction, the field was set up on the North west corner finding the smoothest spot avoiding the manufactured giant molehills.

Some rather short circuits followed with cloudbase at 800-1000ft, but the course members wanted to do launch failure practice anyway. 

6 in the Gator for lunch (John Alcroft)

After a break for lunch, the sun started appearing briefly, and it felt brighter and warmer, but the cloudbase was stubbornly still low. Training flights continued and Wooly set a tight landing area for the yellow card pilots practice their field landing expertise.

As if by magic, as 6:00pm arrived the skies cleared into a lovely evening and the kit was handed over to the evening group helpers who enjoyed a liitle bit of soaring on the south ridge with the Moretonhampstead Explorer Scouts.......

Low cloud came back late evening (Jill Harmer)

 .....Whilst the course members, Instructors, Helpers and Hangers-on enjoyed a course meal at the Keepers Cottage. - J&P

Wednesday 10th May - Course Week

Course flying 
Wednesday started with a busy launch point full of the usual Wednesday suspects plus many privateers fooled by the promising RASP seen on Monday. Although the promised soaring conditions proved to be less than forecast, the newer guys on the course – Roy, Steve and Andy – had a full and busy day circuit bashing with simulated launch failures starting in the afternoon to show their solid progress.
Meanwhile, John, Hans and Tim shared a Junior achieving a reasonably-high launch rate with mostly short circuits until Hans got away during and after lunch to achieve his one hour soaring flight for the cross-country endorsement. John then pinched the K13 from the Wednesday gang and set off for another attempt at an hour but was called back after 47 minutes when the Wednesday people eventually noticed their primary 2-seater had disappeared. In summary: a solid mid-course day with plenty of varied flights. - Tim Petty

Club Flying 
According to Ron it was going to be another 500km day, so unsurprisingly there were great expectations and an early call for a tug pilot (Pete Warren) and all the gliders were ready at the West end of the field by 11:00am.

The thermals were slow to start and there were no aerotows much before lunch time, getting away was very hit and miss from the winch with huge amounts off sink.

Eventually all the gliders that wanted aerotows were launched and the day progressed slowly with the May course in full swing.

Course week, club day and hopes for cross-country flying (John Street)

 The day turned out to be a 'not a very good' cross-country day with a very murky cloudbase at best 2,500ft - 3,000ft over North Hill, but the course continued till after 6:00pm and everyone had plenty of flying.  - John Street

 Cross-country flying
The main cross-country attempts were JB who managed to get to Barnstaple and back along a street, and Ron & Dan in ASH25 and Pete Startup in Discus did versions of the Club 100, whilst Pete & Jill in DuoDiscus wombled around Bampton and Culmhead before the sea air got in. The other private owners mostly stuck to local soaring. - J&P

Tuesday 9th May - Course week

After a good first day of the Course week it was no surprise that everyone was at the Club bright and early in anticipation of another day of flying. However the relatively positive forecast was not reflected in the actual weather with the early morning blue skies soon replaced by grey.

So, after a morning briefing on the likely weather for the day and potential soaring conditions from John Borland the decision was made to set up the launch point in the South West corner of the field. Both K21s and a Junior were taken out of the hangar ahead of being walked down to the launch point. Meanwhile Mike and Peter completed some 'ground school' briefings with Andy, Steve and Roy.

Launching into grey skies initially (Mike Sloggett)

Mid-morning the first flights of the day were underway with Hans and John having the fun of some eventuality checks ahead of Junior flights whilst Tim took the opportunity to complete some Junior flights before Hans and John got to the glider. The morning then saw continued progression of training flights for Andy, Steve and Roy. As lunchtime arrived then so did an improving sky with increasing evidence of thermic activity around the airfield. Lunch was therefore eaten quickly...

An improving sky (Mike Sloggett)

And from early afternoon onwards as ever it was a question of making the most of the evident thermals which were strong albeit rough and broken needing good handling skills and of course in and amongst the lift there was strong sink (8 to 10 down in places) requiring sensible circuit planning!

Towards the end of the day a rope break meant a sooner rather than planned finish to the day but with two good days of gliding already and a reasonable weather forecast for the next couple of days there were plenty of smiling faces in the Clubroom for the end of day discussion/de-brief.

During the afternoon Pete Startup (Discus 230) launched and 'disappeared' for a couple of hours, apparently local soaring but actually completing the Club 100! Carl Tharme and David Cottingham took the opportunity to take Motor Falke (G-BKVG) for an airing.

Nick Jones - Earth mover (Peter Smith)

Early evening Nick, Pete and John continued to move top soil into a section in the North west of the airfield as part of the ongoing field leveling project - with Nick creating some additional challenges for pilots by creating temporary 'giant molehills'....

Temporary giant  molehills (Mike Sloggett)

Another good day all round. - Mike Sloggett

Fayence - 27April - 5 May

Took the ferry to Calais on Thursday 27th April evening , camped the night then drove to Fayence on Friday.
For various reasons of weather and doing other stuff I did not get to fly W7 until 5th May.

Very different from flying in the Alps - the mountains around the site are not so steep and they need a good strong wind to make them work. However it is so hot down here that you can run these soft ridges and hit lots of thermals on the way.

Great sky (Wyn Davies)

I spent a day playing locally, then ventured over the mountain to explore the first landout field from the air. This was quite enough for me and I returned to find a wonderful sea breeze/confluence had set up over Fayence and played in that before landing. 

Land out field at La Mure (Wyn Davies)

8th May
I finally really left the site with strong lift and a great cloud base.  Explored the next land out fields at La Mure and Thorame and visited mountain ridges I was familiar with from time spent at La Motte and Barcelonnette. The Alps to the North are very white and look quite intimidating from down south. Whether I will venture up there is yet to be seen, but so far the "lacal" area has much to offer without being too ambitious. - Wyn and Marie

Monday 8th May - Course Week

A year ago the second Course week of 2016 had started with a day of much talking and little gliding and unfortunately with poor weather most days that continued to be the case for much of that particular week.

So it was good news all round today as Course members and helpers arrived at the Club to find the weather was as forecast - with blue skies, a bright sun and a reasonable wind in direction and strength.

Mike Sloggett and Peter Smith, as Course Instructors, welcomed Steve and Andy (both with previous gliding experience) Roy (a returnee from last year) and Tim, John and Hans all existing Club members.

Introductions done, briefings completed and importantly Course objectives discussed and agreed, it was time to unpack the hangar and set up the launch point in the South West corner.

With the wind strength suggesting an 'interesting' approach the decision was made to start with just the K21s which after their daily inspections were soon being walked down to the other end of the field.

North Hill airfield looking rather brown (Mike Sloggett)

And then it was a morning of progress for all involved - there were odd clouds here and there during the morning but no consistency to the potential lift under and around same.

Launching into a beautiful blue sky (Mike Sloggett)

After a lunch break with the wind strength having eased a Junior was brought out of the hanger for the afternoon.

And the afternoon provided continuing opportunities for further progress to be made by various Course members with the limited availability of evident lift allowing practice of circuit planning and the approach from the East.

A quiet launch point for the course (Mike Sloggett)

And then almost as soon as the day had started hangar flights were being completed with the gliders and ground equipment being put away just after 6pm.

All in all a good start to the Course week with Roy commenting that he had already had nearly as much gliding on the first day as he had had in the whole of last year's Course week!

By the end of day a total of 29 flights had been completed (23 K21 training flights, 6 Junior flights) - Mike Sloggett

Sunday 7th May - ICL

After yesterday's disappointing weather with no flying at all at North Hill due to low cloud and ICL had been scrubbed on Friday, there was a little bit of hope for Sunday with some marginal soaring weather forecast. 

Club flying got going as normal, but the ICL briefing was expecting a very late start with lowish cloudbases and weak thermals as Dave Masson described "duff air".

The tasks were originally set based on Top Meteo forecast, but RASP was not nearly so optimistic, and so were modified down to a much smaller area.

Novice NH2 - TIE - BEA - NH2 91Km

Intermediate NH2 - BAM - BEA - WEG - NH2 128Km

Pundit NH2 - DUL - MBU - CLH - NH2 151Km

The top cover started to break at North Hill about 13:30, and the competition launches followed from 14:00 into a rather uninspiring sky.  Eventually, the clouds started looking a little better, although watching Spot the gliders there were a lot of low-level struggles going on. 

Pete Startup 230 flew off the back of the grid and completed the Novice task albeit with an almighty save  from a 'non-convergence' near the south coast, and Ron and Dan 711 struggled round Club 100. 

There were valiant attempts at the tasks but very few succeeded in scoring highly. Chris Wool and Jess Summers  flying DG505 Intermediate task turned Bampton  before heading for home. Paul Little  in  Open Cirrus completed the Novice task but didn't score due to administrative errors. Jake Matthews from Culdrose  flying for NHL in Junior  also had adminstrative errors with the start and first turnpoint. Matthew Williamson in 611 flying Intermediate for Mendip also struggled after Bampton.

There were 4 landouts, keeping all  the crews busy.  

Chris & Jess - relieved to have landed back at North Hill (Mike Fawcett)

Well done to Sam Prin Upavon for successfully completing the Pundit task and Paddy Hogarth Mendip for successfully completing the Intermediate task (although not having enough height to land back at North Hill)

Preliminary Scores are for Sunday
Novice: 
No one passed Y without administrative penalties
Class not scorable

Intermediate:

Mendip  - 6 points

Wyvern - 1 point

DSGC  - 0 point

Pundit:

Wyvern  - 6 points

Dartmoor - 5 points

DSGC  - 0 points

Overall position after Round 2  (North Hill)
1st Wyvern  33 points
2nd MGC 22 points
3rd  BWND 18 points
4th DSGC 17 points
5th DGS 11 points

Well done all. 

Thanks to Pete Bennett NHL Vice-Captain for managing the whole weekend very well.

Thursday 4th May

The Blocking High over North of Scotland gave us yet another north easterly wind with a weak occlusion and low cloud. But the morning wasn't wasted... 

A number of members assisted Ian Mitchell in weighing HCX,  Rob Rand practised his weather briefing skills and we looked at the possibilities of soaring weather for the North Hill leg of InterClub league coming up this weekend. 

By lunchtime the gaps started to come and go, but ever hopeful the kit was walked up to the other end of the field, and we had some of those nice cloud formations...

Chris Wool showing Geoff Lawrence one of his dance moves from the 1970s (Mark Layton)

With a Yellow flag for the gusty conditions, there were plenty of Bronze training exercises taking place, and  Ian Hunt managed the longest flight with 28 minutes in the Junio r- during the one bit of marginal soaring weather. 

Mike Sloggett " I hate waiting for cables" (Mark Layton)

 Unfortunately all the Trial lessons today had to be cancelled for a day with better weather and higher cloudbases.  - J & P

Wednesday 3rd May

The forecast of low cloud and a fresh and brisk north-easterly proved to be accurate and just a few stalwarts arrived to fly. Full height winch launches were just about available in the morning with cloud base lifting a little after lunch. A number of training flights and card checks were carried out. Thanks to Peter Field for helping out. Unfortunately both trial lessons had to be postponed due to the wind and low cloud base, we hope to see them again another day.-  John Sillett