The recent weather has not been very kind to glider pilots keen to get away from writing Christmas cards and wrapping presents and for most of the week the forecast for today was again suggesting a day of no flying at North Hill. With this in mind, alarm clocks were reset for today and ‘to do’ lists created - and all seemed correct actions until the forecast improved just a little overnight and suggesting that some flying may just be possible today. And so it was that some of the Plymouth Thursday fliers exchanged messages and decided that if nothing else a trip to North Hill would allow a pre-Christmas catch up.
Upon arrival at the airfield the actual weather was indeed an improvement on the forecast and with a smaller than usual Thursday group of members, a decision was made to go flying - both K21s and a Junior were soon out of the hangar and having daily inspections complete.
The winch was set up towards the East end of the airfield whilst Launch Control was towed down to the other end - until it was nearly there and then the Tow vehicle and Launch Control came to a complete stop in a rather soggy area of old grass, which delayed the plan to fly by a couple of hours - after trying various ideas the only thing left to try was to use the ‘big tractor’. Peter Smith and Mark Courtney had been working away in the MT hangar, but once told about the problem Peter was soon appearing over the horizon like the cavalry. The big tractor made easy work of towing out the combination and soon the Launch Control was positioned where it needed to be.
View from the Winch (Mike Sloggett)
With time lost due to the above only a K21 and the Junior were taken to the launch point. We welcomed Paul Davie from Dunstable for his first flight from North Hill, Paul has moved down to Budleigh Salterton and is planning to join us.
And then it was on with the flying with everyone getting into the air, with reports of launch heights up to 1400’, before a lowering cloudbase saw an easy decision to complete hangar flights bringing the day to an end - not spectacular flying today but all those who flew were able to reset their currency levels.
Resetting Currency (Mike Sloggett)
Thank You to all those who helped today, particularly Peter from "Blue Overall Recovery Services" for his timely arrival and help. - Mike Sloggett
