Club flying days are a little difficult to predict at the moment - not just the weather but also as to how many members will be turning up to fly..... Sunday was the latest day to see the Clubhouse very full for the morning briefing, whereas the previous day had been rather quiet on the two-seater list. The fact that many of the members present on Sunday morning were very much around 14 years in age might or might not have been a link to the previous night’s social evening and related alcohol consumption but who knows…
Some of our new Junior members (Mark Courtney)
With both K21s, the Perkoz and a Junior out of the hangar and the winch run set up for the forecast WSW wind direction Ron Johns completed the morning briefing and then it was on with the busy flying list. Ron, Mike Sloggett and John Burrow steadily worked their way through the training list during the day helped by Dave Perriam and Paul Summers flying with some of the ‘newbie’ junior members whilst Simon Jordy looked after our trial lesson visitor.
Apart from a short break in flying mid-morning for some heavy rain which had not been forecast, but which was not entirely unexpected, flying continued all day - whilst cloudbase was only around 2200ft the thermal streets made for some good flights under and around the dark clouds, with good lookout very much needed as always.
With the thermals continuing into the early evening, flying went on a little later than usual to make the most of the conditions.
Congratulations to James Flory FI(C)
Well Done to James Flory who successfully passed his Basic Instructor (Coach) assessment with Simon Minson.
It was good to see many of our newbie junior members getting ‘stuck in’ to the ground operations side of things throughout the day - thank you to the experienced members who got ‘stuck in’ helping and supporting/training the newbie junior members to learn ground tasks whilst also driving the winch and running Launch Control, great teamwork all round . - Mike Sloggett