The day started blue, folks were staying airborne by stumbling into lift and working it. Clouds did start to pop but going into a climb with an idea with where to head next mostly had to be revised as those clouds were no longer there. Steve B downgraded his plan for a 300km in HZD down to 100km. Mid afternoon conditions got significantly better - in fact about the time I returned in the LS3-17 to hand it to Colin B. He then romped off around the Devizes/Wantage/Rivar 100km triangle. That meant it was left to me to test fly the Vega which involved climbing to well over 3,000', thermalling, spinning and side-slipping (all to the left and the right) all within 16 minutes. Having helped rig 5 gliders and doing a stint on the winch Perer E returned from a 7 minute flight to discover HZD needed collected from Bidford.
22 hours flown off 25 launches with 4,000 being reported the highest ahieved.
It's true I did say I was downgrading to 100km. But the first leg to Abingdon went well, so I doubled it to Bicester. That also went well so I continued to the originally-intended Newport Pagnell. Unfortunately it went to worms on the second leg to Great Malvern and I landed at Bidford. 174km. Oh well.
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