Saturday 14th - rain didn't stop play!

The day started off quite sunny but soon after we got the field set up and the toys were out it clouded over and threatened to rain :-(

After some discussion about how high (low) cloudbase was a quick lob to find out was in order and with no willing volunteer available I made John Scott sit in the front of JPC.

Most, including me, thought it to be about 600 ft so we were all surprised when it turned out to be 1100 ft! But this was to be short lived as by scraping the bottom of the cloud we made it leak which made us stop for a bit.

Our resident Met man assured us that by 2pm it would clear and as we had an afternoon of trial lessons booked we decamped to Rods camper for a chin wag.

Sure enough at the appointed time the drizzle stopped and soon many club gliders were being launched into a clearing and surprisingly thermic sky.

The people who had won flights from the Pewsey Carnival along with the group from Newbury had a very enjoyable afternoon flying which kept all three 2 seaters busy. With a northerly breeze launch heights were quite reasonable and extended flights were possible. I think by 6pm we had flown about 18 TL's and also got in a fair bit of club flying.

Thanks to Steve Ottner and Pete Ellison for helping me with the flying, Rod and Steve B for taking turns driving the winch and to everyone else who made the afternoon's flying possible.

Now who was it that managed to get the longest flight of the day with 27 minutes in the K8?..............no can't remember :-)



Phil