Sutton Bank Exped 2

from http://www.ygc.co.uk/wordpress/


Sarurday 19th.  Rain in the morning and low cloud for the rest of the day kept the gliders in the hangars, while the cool and moderate N’ly flow kept the pilots in the clubhouse, although a couple chose to fly in sunnier skies on the simulator.  The club welcomed pilots and gliders from both the Shalbourne and Stratford GCs with the hope of better conditions for the  new week starting on Sunday.

Sunday 20th.  The moderate N’ly flow continued, but the day was dry and the cloud, although low, provided sufficient gaps to allow flying to commence at 1030 hrs and continue until 1730 hrs, during which time around 30 ATs were flown.   The conditions provided some  navigation challenges,  but no one got lost.  The visiting pilots from Shalbourne and Stratford took the opportunity to get airborne with 16 launches in their own gliders, Messrs Harris and Elison putting up the longest 2 seater flight of the day as conditions improved a little in the afternoon, 27 minutes in their Puchacz, just beating the 26 minutes of Messrs Pike and Greenwood in the Janus.  No YGC single seaters were flown, the 2 K21s and the DG1000 providing flights  for the rest of those wanting to fly, including Tony Dury who made use of his Learn to Fly package to have 4 flights with John Marsh in the K21, the longest being 21 minutes.   2 pilots managed to find sufficient lift to exceed an hour in the air, Barry Kerby having 1:27 in his LS8 via a series of short cloud climbs, the cloud base not increasing much over the day.  The last flight of the day saw Bob  Calvert make use of a downwind convergence to soar for 1:07 in his Discus.