Arriving fashionably late on the airfield on Wednesday I was pleasantly surprised to see that the midweek crew almost had the field set up and HAX trailer was parked at in the rigging area. 'Just as well you got started early' says I 'cos it'll all be over by one o' clock'. HAX was hastily rigged and by 11 o'clock the entire club fleet was on the line, by which time the sky looked like this:
By midday Selvam and I were looking down at a deserted launch point.
By half past twelve the sky was beginning to look like this:
at which point the five gliders that had been soaring for an hour or so all landed for lunch. By this time the afternoon shift had arrived, so Stephen and I spent the rest of the day inflicting some serious 'bung pulling'.
There may be a moral here somewhere....
Close on the heels of Colin and Selvan were myself and Jonty our newest member. As an experienced Para-glider pilot no stranger to the Rivar ridge also no stranger to our airfield - his first taste of flying being at Rivar Hill with his Dad but that was 40 years ago. Jonty proved there are transferable skills in making the most from a thermal when he scratch away from weak lift in the bowl. He was rewarded with a good view of a couple of flying duvets not going anywhere. What to do next? Off to fly over his house at Great Bedwyn and on to the Savernake and home via Hungerford and Kintbury with enough height to have fun and games getting down to circuit height.
ReplyDeleteAs we past midday all that was offer were circuits (as clever clogs Colin predicted) with one eception as Bll C defied gravity in the K8 for almost an hour.