The forecasts for Wednesday were far from promising with RASP showing one of the cloud base on the deck, the Met Office being more optimistic with one of some sunshine with cloud. As it turned out it was a mixture of both!
JB and Pete Warren in Perkoz (Mark Layton)
After a delayed start all the gear was taken out and DI'd as things initially looked promising. Just as the first launches were carrying out their preflight checks, suspiciously looking low clouds appeared to the south of the airfield. Pete Smith along with junior member Arthur Lean took a met flight that turned out to be a simulated cable break demonstration as they entered cloud at just over 400ft. With no sign of improvement it seemed to make sense to use the opportunity to practice more cable breaks so Arthur's dad Richard joining in the fun under Glenn Turpin's guidance with his own. This continued until lunchtime which coincided with a further lowering cloud base and some drizzly rain.
Occasional light rain in the morning (Mark Layton)
Much to everyone's delight the sun broke through after an hour which also coincided with the end of lunch. With cloud base never getting higher than 1200ft there was fortunately plenty of blue bits for people to fly around in with both thermal and ridge lift in the increasing southerly wind keeping the aircraft aloft with varying degrees of success. Pete Startup won the day with 27 minutes, squeezing the most out of his flight with several passes up and down the south ridge.
Plenty of blue bits in the afternoon (Mark Layton)
Everyone who wanted to fly did so before we packed up at 16:30. Once again it just goes to show that even on the days with very uninspiring weather forecasts there is always a chance you might fly, which we did! - Mark Layton
