With the very gusty strong crosswind preventing flying on Wednesday, the Thursday crowd filled the flying list early on. The start was delayed due to fixing the mainwheel of the K21 - Thanks to Andrew Logan, Paul Medlock and Pete Startup.
There was a fresh westerly wind and cumulus clouds all morning and it wasn't long before the soaring started. Increasingly a line of convergence appeared from the South and sat over the airfield making it reasonably easy to get away from the winch launch (with no tug available). Only a few unlucky pilots missed out.
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| North Hill in the sunshine (Peter Smith) |
Private owners were represented by John Borland FAJ, Andrew Logan FMS, Mark Layton 477, Eric Alston G29, who stayed local and Pete Startup 230 and Rich Roberts V5 who set off to Salisbury, and JB who decided against following them. Having turned Salisbury, Pete found the going slow and the sea air came in from the south to catch them both. Pete found the 15m strip Middle Chinnock near Crewkerne and Rich was nearer Yeovil, so 2 retrieve crews - Paul and Tom - were dispatched.
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| 230 in a 15m strip at Crewkerne (Pete Startup) |
A few more instructors arrived early for the evening meeting and were able to help out with the flying list. While the DG505 was derigged ready for the trip to Portmoak.
Latecomer Stewart Henshall HMS took a launch at 4pm but still managed 2 hours soaring. The late afternoon lift was described as stupendous - 10knots -as the convergence set up from both coasts. - 35 launches in all, thanks everyone.- J&P
