Lasham Task Weekend
The alarm went off at 4am this morning much to Dan Hender's disgust, but with the pull of Lasham Task weekend he jumped in the car for the journey ahead. We arrived at 7:30am and had rigged JDP by 8:30am, to then sit with a coffee awaiting the task to be set.
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G Dale surveying the competition (Rob Hender)
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At 9am Dan was happy to see a 50km task set, (this turned out to be a Junior joke) as however 5 mins later a 309km task was set for his class "Rum", which meant he was heading towards Wales. LAS - Hereford Cathedral - Bishops Cleeve - BlakeHill Farm - LAS
The grid started launching at 11:00am, which meant he took his launch at 11:29am, (just missed by Jill and Pete who arrived at 11.30am having been stuck in traffic on the journey up). …….. The first leg was long 150kms and thermals picked up to 4-5knots to 4000ft after Kemble. The turnpoint itself was uneventful and Dan was pleased to turn back as Wales looked ragged (dragons). The second leg started off really well with easy climbs up to a higher cloudbase, but hit a low point at Staverton before climbing away. All was good until the Swindon area when he changed to survival mode under the spreadout, seriously messing up the task speed. 16th out of 28 with 689 points for the day competing against Dave Watt, Andy Holmes, current World Champion Tom Arscott and several of the Junior National Team.
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Debrief in the bar (Sally Hender)
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The DG202 was pulled off line and parked and the wings were washed (subtly encouraged by Jill).
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All pundits clean their wings after flight (Rob Hender)
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Debrief in the cafe/bar followed. Checking on whether Dan's first 300kms qualifies for Gold distance, Diamond Goal - the flight was good, but no electronic declaration - ho hum!, Congratulations Dan first 300kms of many. - Sally & Jill
North Hill
Many thanks to James Flory and the few instructors who were at North Hill today. At long last we got a taste of summer - perhaps the best for a week or two. We flew everyone, except Tom Gunner, who did an amazing job on cable retrieve most of the day, but left before we could fly him. 32 winch launches and 16 aerotows.
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Phil and Connor in DD3 (Stewart Henshall)
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Phil Morrison and Connor Williams in DD3 enjoyed a flight out to the north coast accompanied by Pete Startup 230 who flew to Ilfracombe and back.
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The Eagle landing (Stewart Henshall)
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The Eagle BBB was aired for the first time this year.
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Simon Minson putting Dave Perriam through BI checks (Simon Minson)
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Congratulations to Dave Perriam for surviving all day under the scrutiny of Simon Minson (RE) and signed off BI rating. Sally & Jill
