Saturday 9th June

With the wet and blustery conditions of the last few days behind us Saturday was a refreshing change. We still had 15 to 20 knots of almost dead westerly flow to deal with but after placing a few limitations regarding levels of experience for solo and a briefing about flying too far downwind during the circuit etc we got off to a good start.

Initially cloudbase was around 2500ft but quickly rose to over 4500ft as the day progressed. Good climbs were reported and many extended flights were flown. Due to the cross wind launch heights were understandably reduced but if you were lucky to be launched within easy reach of a good area of lift then you could extend your flight quite easily, time it wrong and a quick circuit was the result.We even managed to deliver a 30min trial lesson!

As the day progressed the sky became filled with comp pilots from Lasham, no doubt grateful for our fleet of thermal markers. Jim McCormick and I in the Puchacz had 6 of them sharing one of our climbs!

All in all plenty of soaring flights were flown and those not quite solo were treated to cross wind landings.

Thanks to Steve Ottner and Richard Dann for helping me instruct when a developing cold threatened to curtail my flying.


Phil