Thursday morning dawned overcast and raining steadily - not encouraging for a days gliding. The journey was slow with heavy traffic and there was light rain on arriving at North Hill.
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| A great job from Peter Smith and his helpers (Peter Smith) |
A small group of intrepid 'North Hillers' were huddled at the entrance to the storage tunnel watching our resident engineering wizard (Peter Smith) and his able assistants, who were installing Peter Smith’s latest creation - New doors for the Tunnel.
So great to have such skilled volunteers (John Borland)
The days briefing was put back to 10:30 waiting the promised clearance from the west. A light NE wind dictated launching from the west end and despite the overnight rain the field had drained sufficiently to allow winching. The first met flight took off at 11:28 followed by a 3000ft aerotow which managed to stay airborne for 28 minutes in the rather dead conditions, however as the day progressed the sun made an appearance, the sky improved and it even felt slightly warm.
Thanks to Alan for the aerotows (John Borland)
Flight times improved as the afternoon wore on with the longest flight (58 minutes) going to John Borland in the Junior who therefore got the job of writing the blog. In all a good days flying rescued from a dodgy start. It pays to turn up even if it doesn’t look promising. Big thanks to Mike Sloggett for running the day and sounding optimistic on the previous days forecast. Also a big thanks to Alan Rappaport piloting the yellow EuroFox for five aerotows. The Red EuroFox still being u/s.
A total of 23 flights, 18 winch launches, 5 aerotows, approximately 5 ½ hours defying gravity.- John Borland
