Arriving at the club early morning to temperatures and wind that felt like late October, I did wonder what this late Autumn (sorry mid-summer) day would bring. So few members turned up by 9:15 Stuart Procter the duty instructor decided to delay the briefing until nearly 10 (think he wanted breakfast really) hoping more members would turn up..they didn’t. Nevertheless there were enough to fly, at the briefing I said that I thought the afternoon might be quite good, no one expected quite how good it would be!
The wind was very strong but right down the runway, first met check flight confirmed that conditions were surprisingly “ok” for training in the upper blue card conditions, sadly too strong for the Trial lesson visitors and Roly’s two friends and family members, they promised to return however.
In the clubhouse, Stuart Thomson and Ivan Roulson met the prearranged group of Halberton cubs hoping to get their part two “aviation badge”, there were rather a lot of them!
A packed Clubhouse (Mark Courtney)
Soaring was possible from the first flight as the James duo, James Flory and James Smart found out, it was nice to see James Smart back from Guernsey for a couple of weeks.
Great cloud streets (Mark Courtney)
Stuart Procter made a concerted effort to progress Andy Batchelor towards his Part One of his instructor course, with massive lines of lift (streets) appearing in front of the west end of the airfield it was effortless to stay airborne and practice lots of exercises.
Meanwhile I did the same thing with Shaun Dayman who is just about ready for his test to become a basic instructor.
James Flory who was duty tow plane pilot made redundant because of the strong wind, flew with Stuart Thomson, who looked rather battered after his gallant efforts to control what seemed like 50 small over excited (but very well-behaved) children!
Stuart having now finished torturing poor Andy who was last seen heading for a dark room needed a new victim, step up the ever keen Joel, Joel handled the very difficult conditions well and demonstrated that he is more than ready to progress to a red card, the next rung up on the ladder. Joel was also signed off for winch driving and Shaun received logging training.
Joel Roulson showing Stuart Procter he can cope with the weather conditions (Mark Courtney)
With a spare K21 Tom Sides and Paul Medlock took a flight together to enjoy the conditions, with noone else to fly James Flory took Stuart Thomson as ballast in the back seat for a free flight.
Nice sky (Mark Courtney)
Thanks to Vicky for providing food in a somewhat chaotic environment, she did comment to me however “was just like her front room at home”!
In summary, a day that promised so little gave so much to the members that turned up, happy wind burnt faces all round, I love Autumn flying………. Mark Courtney
and what was going on up North? Competition Enterprise is at Sutton Bank Saturday 6 - 13 July with teams DD3 and BBB and Dan Hender in JDP (and with Connor Williams freelancing in FZ with Rob Vaughan) competing. Watch the action on Glide and Seek, and see separate blog entries.
