With a promising looking day forecast there was a flurry of rigging activity, including those "on a mission". Justin B for Silver distance, Steve B for Gold triangle and Colin B for lots of kms.
First a short check flight and then the next instructional flight turned into a modest triangle taking in Burbage and Hungerford. As the day progressed the cloud base increased from less than 3,000' to over 5,000 (just). A third of the flights were 50 minutes or more (Steve B's 3:59 qualifies as "more").. Whilst some folks were lucky enough to get a couple of the longer flights others only got short circuits. Naff all wind resulted in modest launch heights and no chance to escape a sink hole if that's what you were launched into. Even Fluffy Harris couldn't keep the K7 airborne for long (unlike Sunday when the Olly responded to his magic touch).
After a 3 hours in the back seat Colin had returned and offered to trade places. I sat at the launch point at 16:30 in the LS3, looking at a not so promising sky and thinking maybe it wasn't such a great idea. 1,100' launch but found some weak lift which eventually (about 20 minutes) got me to 4,000'. Shortly after found something to take to 5,000'. After that it was a romp off to Newbury then Andover (left Andover at 4,000 and arrived back at RIV at the same height without stopping to turn anywhere) then off to M4 north of Hungerford for my high key. Paul P launched a few minutes after me and also managed to scrape away and soar the K8 for an hour. Unexpected bonus at the end of the day.
As to the "men on a mission"? Justin landed at Aston Down to claim his Silver distance. Steve and Colin abandoned their tasks but covered a fair amount of ground. Hopefully they will add their accounts to this blog.
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