A warm day with a nice easterly breeze and not a cloud in sight.
An abundance of blue thermals topping out at circa 4,500ft QFE allowed a total of 39 winch launches and 9 aerotows with flights of over an hour possible and flights of a few minutes not uncommon, this being the nature of a ‘blue day.’
Birthday Boy Dan Hender (Sally Hender)
There were no ‘blues’ on the ground though as Birthday Boy Dan Hender rocked up on his new motorcycle and Sally provided us all with rapidly melting Cheeky Monkey chocolate cake to celebrate.
Six family and friends flights were enjoyed including Glenn's Grandaughters and Dan's Gran! It was good to see most of Family Bennett for a day out as well and news that Pete Bennett has completed his Masters degree with great results and has now got a job in Woking.
The Cross-country pilots that could cope with the heat and the blue completed the local club tasks.
Eric Alston G29 Tiverton - Crewkerne - Tiverton
" First ever cross country flight in completely blue conditions. Short of time at the launch point so tried to edit last task to club 100 but unable to edit out extra turn point so left last one in with no intention of going round, in fact little intention of doing a task. Bimbled off to Chard, decided to start, go run west, thermals were either missed or dying out at Chard and further east. Managed to find lift at Chard on return journey and lift improved nearer North Hill. Decided to go to iverton, lift everywhere and return to finish."
Pete Startup 230 Crewkerne - Tiverton
" Dave Masson was right, trigger temp was late. Spent 2 hours being bounced around in windblown (where did that come from) scrappy thermals until about 15:00 when it switched on and became much better. After that I was happy just to get round"
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| Justin Wills arrives for a visit with Antares (Jill Harmer) |
And towards the end of the afternoon Justin Wills and his Antares '1' arrived at North Hill from Lasham, followed shortly after by Gillian with the trailer - great to see them both at North Hill again.
The end of the flying saw all the club gliders expertly hangar landed and tucked away for the night and a few stalwart members enjoyed a well deserved rehydration beer and bantered as the evening cooled and the sunset coloured the eastern sky. - Mike Willmott
