We had a rather good day at North Hill today. Many members were on site bright and early with many pieces of ground equipment being rather stubborn to move when we tried to get them out. After a briefing by DI James Flory the airfield was setup with the first launch at about 10:00. As the day progressed the sky got a bit more lively with some thermals of reported strengths of 2-5kts up to about 3500-4000ft. This prompted some flights from private gliders including SM, V5, 230, JDP, and DRE alongside the training flights and Junior soaring.. 41 winch launches in total, a first field landing completed, and well done to our new caterers Vicki and Josh on their first full weekend. Overall it was a brilliant day out in some nice weather after the awful winter.
230 and SM set off on on the Club100 NH2 - North Tawton - Knowstone - NH2, well done to Pete Startup for completing, Simon Minson turned back short of Knowstone.
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| Enjoyable day in the ASW20 (Simon Minson) |
"Thick high cover made for weak thermals and a slow slog in soggy mid-Devon but nice to be out with SM for company." Pete Startup 230
Late afternoon light at North Hill (Stewart Henshall)
DRE: Following the discussions and briefings with Instructors yesterday about a potential flight today, when I turned up at the club this morning the forecast had gone downhill significantly, so after a chat with Simon Minson I decided to just go for some local soaring. I then took a launch and after about 15 mins noted that my electrics had died (upon landing I realised my leg had dislodged the battery connector) so was flying without an eVario.
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| Sea Breeze Front (Connor Williams) |
After a quick pootle round locally to Tiverton for half an hour in brilliant conditions with Simon's words "if the conditions are miraculously better then go for it" ringing in my ears I decided to point eastwards and attempt a 50k. I was managing to keep nice and high up until Chard where I got rather low and had a field selected but luckily I managed to make a low save and climb back up.
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| A very nice large field (Connor Williams) |
From here I managed to soar the sea breeze front for a bit but lost this which left me pushing for distance before eventually landing in a rather large field a few miles west of Beaminster. - Connor Williams
