One could see in the last few days from the rapidly changing forecasts that the second August course Week was going to be “interesting” weather wise.
Those staying on site awoke to find a shroud of morning mist across the airfield and with little sign of the sun breaking through - as the Course members started to arrive John Sillett and Mike Sloggett, as Course Instructors, were already working out a plan of ground school briefings “just in case”. Meanwhile Team Family Hender were efficiently setting up the airfield “just in case”.
With the Course Welcome brief completed and as John and Mike were looking at which Course members would benefit from which ground school briefings the sun suddenly broke through and it became evident that flying might just be possible in the not too distant future.
Both K21s were brought out of the hangar and with daily inspections completed the gliders were soon being towed across to the launch point in the North East corner of the airfield.
John Sillett and Ollie Butler were soon airborne in KEK and with cloudbase evidently increasing a full launch height was achieved - John and Ollie completed further flights each becoming slightly longer in duration as the thermals, albeit not very high cloudbase wise, provided the opportunity to make the most of the conditions.
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| Sun on North Hill -grass needs the rain (Mike Sloggett) |
Mike Sloggett and Simon Stanley took HCX into the air and similarly had extended circuits.
Then with weather evidently deteriorating it was now a question of how many more flights could be completed before the rain arrived - John and Stewart Henshall completed 2 flights whilst Mike and Toby Butler completed 1 flight.
And then with the gentle patter of raindrops on the gliders it was a relatively easy decision to park the gliders and stop for lunch with ‘fingers crossed’ that the afternoon weather might not be as bad as forecast.
During the morning we welcomed Harvey Skeggs who has joined the Course for the rest of the week.
Lunch over and with flying not possible John and Mike completed various ground school briefings - and then after a review of various weather forecasts together with a visit to the West end of the airfield to see what weather was on it’s way sadly the only decision to be made was to put everything away for the day.
Packing up (Mike Sloggett)
Thank you to Team Family Hender and Tim Butler for their help on the ground to get Course members into the air today. - Mike Sloggett
