Another blue sky morning with a light northerly wind, but it was fairly leisurely to see if the wind was going to settle at east of north or as forecast west of north, and a few minor fettling jobs were undertaken on the Club fleet.
Eventually we set up for the north westerly wind but low launches were inevitable. The first few launches were a bit of a lottery on getting away, but then the soaring started in ernest. Every flight from 12:00 onwards was more than 30 mins.
Thermals were plentiful and strong averaging 5 knots over the local area and to the west, (trickier to the east) cloudbase was initially 4000ft above North Hill reaching 5000ft by the end of the day.
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| Andy, Rob and John - Congratulations (Jill Harmer) |
Congratulations to Rob Rand and John Borland for achieving their Silver heights in LRD and FZF respectively. Rob (flying over lunchtime) also got his 2 hour flight towards Cross-country endorsement.
Congratulations also to Andy Davey for completing his Cross-Country endorsement field landings in the morning and Nav test in the afternoon with Mark Courtney in Rotax Falke.
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| Waiting for thermals to start (Jill Harmer) |
Well done to Pete Harmer and Chris Wool for managing to soar to a Mile High for their respective Trial lesson visitors from 800ft winch launches, when the Pawnee wouldn't start.
Phil Morrison and Malcolm Vest in DD3 completed the Club 100, Pete Bennett in DG1 went to the reservoirs on Exmoor, and Robert Lee in DKU explored both coasts. Paul Medlock and Eric Alston also enjoyed local soaring. Chris Wool and Ray Dodd flew Tiverton - Taunton in K21.
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| Not many occasions when there was a launch queue (David Clements) |
We welcomed Jasper Hoopman a Dutch glider pilot to enjoy the delights of Devon soaring and look forward to seeing him back at North Hill.
33 launches in total with everyone enjoying a soaring flight - What's not to like about this weather? - J&P
