With a reasonable forecast for Wednesday, there was a larger than usual gathering of pilots hoping to fly, with a long list of pre-solo flyers and check flights to get through it was obvious it was going to be a busy day for John Sillett, Glenn Turpin and John Street.
Apart from some early misting canopies that soon cleared we were ready to fly quite early we opted to fly on the N/W run because the S/W run was still quite wet. The choice of the N/W run turned out to the right choice as the wind veered towards the North, although the wind was quite light to start with the West ridge was providing some welcome extended flights.
With the Juniors Expedition to Long Mynd coming up next week, Charlie Stuckey, Josh Funnell and Ross Pratt decided to reacquaint themselves with the K6, and it was the ideal weather for young Dan to dash up to North Hill after school to get converted to K6 as well, having sorted out all the cushions and lead that was needed. Thanks to all the Club members for supporting the Juniors K6 DRE.
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| Well done to Dan Hender - converting to K6 (Sally Hender) |
It was nice to welcome back Glenn Turpin from his Greek exile and he had a busy day getting back into the swing of instructing.
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| Welcome back Glenn (John Street) |
Robert Lee flew the tug after after its recent magneto repair and then flew an aerotow with Chris Warnes in the Perkoz who nearly landed before him!
In the afternoon the the weather continued to improve and some longer soaring/ridge flights were achieved the longest of which was John Street and Jeff Taberham with 45 minutes.
In the afternoon the the weather continued to improve and some longer soaring/ridge flights were achieved the longest of which was John Street and Jeff Taberham with 45 minutes.
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| Sandy back in the Junior (John Street) |
Well done to Sandy Harrup for re-soloing in the Junior. - John Street.
Expeditions - Denbigh
With a forecast of light west winds, the North Hill Nomads were looking forward to a bit of ridge bashing with a small possibility of wave. So did over 20 other gliders lined up to launch, so we needed no warning to keep a sharp lookout during the day. Glider Flarm warnings and alarms were the order of the day. Pete Startup found himself in a sticky situation looking at field landing spots after the ridge lift suddenly collapsed, but heroically managed to limp back to the field for a relight. To everyone’s surprise, cloud streets then began forming from the ridge off to the west. Wyn Davies had started the ridge task, but then diverted to explore the thermal streets before finishing his task later with an outstanding calculated speed of 30.6 km/hr.
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| Wyn exploring the cloud streets (Wyn Davies) |
What a surprise that we ended up predominately with a mid-October thermic day. The cloud streets running to the west gave everyone time to explore the Conwy valley several times over. Ian and Phil took DD3 to view Mordor (the view looking towards Snowdon and no doubt some Welsh dragons), coming back after reaching Caple Curig. Nick Harrison’s and Tom’s sightseeing also took them into the Conwy valley, while Pete as usual pushed on westward until the rising earth and the end of the cloud street dictated a prudent return back to the ridge to complete a late afternoon task.
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| DD3 exploring Welsh dragons (Phil Morrison) |
Wednesday turned out to be a really good day. Faced with mediocre ridge flying we were blessed to have a wonderful thermic day which gave some fantastic sightseeing opportunities. - Tom Sides
Portmoak
Well thankfully the rain cleared and we had a great time on the ridge at Portmoak 3 hours of ridge bashing
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| Ridge bashing (Stu Procter) |
and a very small amount of weak wave
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| SM flying too (Stu Procter) |
nothing staggering but good to be flying. - Stu Procter
