After a successful day one, day two presented the course with a typical July day, not strawberries and cream and blobs of sun cream on the end of the nose, but a blustery rain-laden morning with a room full of potential weather forecasters proudly comparing weather apps.
Gordon doing a Met lecture (Andy Batchelor)
The forecasters amongst the students ranged from the half pint full ‘let’s go for it’ optimists and half pint empty ‘we won’t get much flying today’ pessimists. Thankfully, Gordon gave an the group an excellent introduction to aviation meteorology and forecast sources. At midday and with years of meteorological experience between John and James it was decided that the pine cones were open enough and the cows were standing in the right direction for us to fly.
One advantage of the wind strength and direction was an active west ridge and sporadic thermal activity. So began a series of ridge soaring, thermalling flights and circuit work with its challenging approaches and landings.
What started for me as a ‘question mark day’ ended as the day I rediscovered Gliding. - Thank you John.
Congratulations are in order to Andy. After years of SAR winch operations Andy was today ‘signed off’ as competent in gliding winch operations. I’m sure Andy is looking forward to years of isolation at the opposite end of the airfield! - Steve Dicksee (New Member and first-time blogger)
