Today was a case of typical April weather, unfortunately its June! The odd bit of occasional drizzle, breaks for proper rain showers, dodging rain clouds, gusty turbulent skies with fantastic lift and strong sink whilst wearing wooly hats and jackets.
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| Assessing the Junior mainwheel brake (Mark Layton) |
The day started with a small team derigging Junior FZF to investigate the ongoing mainwheel brake problem. To gain better access, the glider was inverted and placed on some small trestles to make it stable. The wheel and brake assembly had to be removed and refitted numerous times to determine the cause and having it upside-down saved George Sanderson, Gordon Hutchinson and Mark Layton from scrambling around on the floor. Glider manufacturers all have different idea's on how to make basically the same part and the Polish seem to be be masters at coming up with some clever but obscure solutions. It was found that various components of the brake system have become worn and now have to be replaced. Unfortunately, we don't have all the parts in our small stock of spares and those we have need specialist machining to enable them to be assembled correctly. Hopefully we can get it sorted in the next week or so.
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| Two lines for the course week (Peter Smith) |
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| An improving sky (Richard Lean) |
Meanwhile on the field, the course members and a smattering of Wednesday regulars were being guided by James Flory, Guy Adams and Pete Smith. Before lunch the flight times were relatively short, but after a rain-induced lunchbreak the conditions changed as predicted.
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| Rain clouds in the locality (Mark Layton) |
The thermals started to kick off and the end of the west ridge became a 'safe place' to top up on some height. There was some terrifically strong lift about up to cloudbase if you were lucky enough to connect with it, but there was obviously some wicked sink about as well.
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| Wildflower area (Mark Layton) |
Most people had good soaring flights as the passing rain clouds stayed away from NHL for the rest of the afternoon. By 17:00 everyone had flown and with Chris Mew re-soloing after a bit of of a lay-off on the last flight of the day, everything was packed away. - Mark Layton
