Pete Startup made a shout out last Saturday for the possibility of a good day today, and the call for interest was taken up by Wyn Davies in LS7 W7, Nick Jones and Phil Morrison in Duo Discus DD3, Pete and Jill Harmer in Duo Discus OL and Pete Startup of course in Discus 230.
With Robert Lee supplying the tows, launching the mini-grid started at 11:15 with Pete leading the way on his task NHL - Okehampton - Fordingbridge - NHL 310kms.
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| The Task setters sky - looking across the Solent to the IoW(Pete Startup) |
The first leg to Okehampton was fairly straightforward although cloudbase was still only 4000ft QNH, the return leg passing North Hill saw a rise in bases to 5000ft. At odd spots in Dorset, cloudbase improved even further to 6000ft.
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| Coming back along the south coast looking towards Bournemouth (Wyn Davies) |
The promised convergence along the south coast didn't happen, but there were clouds and thermals all the way across the Somerset levels, so no worries.
The Task setter won the day by 1kph, with the two Duos less than 1kph apart, and W7 had a little wobble on the way home reducing his speed significantly.
A very pleasant day out thanks to Pete for the call and to Robert for tugging. Let's hope to see more ad-hoc day flyers next time. - J&P
