The Thermal is to your left Pete

Sunday Soaring what a great way to pass the day....
Jim M decided to do some aerobatics with Pete S before the TL's started and I got a couple of goodish circuits in before being reminded to round out.... :-)


While the Duo Discus went on its merry way

Easterly Saturday

Not much of a day today. The duty crew plus a couple of others were there - everyone else gone to Eden or Haddenham, or got more sense than to attempt the rough east wind. Still, we had a few flights to improve the skill with turbulence and crosswinds, and towards the end of the day Martin (after a lay-off of several years) showed Richard he cousl still soar despite the challenging conditions, and got to 2800ft.

They said Tuesday would be good....

... and it was. Colin changed this week's midweek day to Tuesday (12th April), which was a good call or we'd have all missed out. At first, every launch soared away, but then it got harder low down and some flights were only quick circuits - commiserations to those who didn't connect, including our visitor from Parham who desperately wanted to fly back home. But if you got that first thermal, it was a fast climb to 5000ft+, even just short of 6500ft by 5pm. Subject to ratification, congratulations to the three pilots who got their silver height climbs, two in consecutive flights in the K8.

Sat 19 March

What? No blog entry yet? It was the first proper soaring day of the year. There were private gliders rigged, and went soaring. Not every flight connected, but there was over 16hrs soaring by those who did, and a total of 44 launches and a visitor landing. We even had a cross-country - er, well, if you count 8km. Why has no-one has taken the P155 yet, not even for coming back to the airfield without the glider? Anyone get any photos?

Sat 18 Sep - a good day! (Well, brilliant actually)

The forecast was for good soaring conditions even by summer standards, and here we are well into September. What's more, it delivered pretty much as promised, even on Liz's day (it must have missed her swap with Tim). Here's what Liz said:
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As forecast, conditions were good; I saw climbs up to 6kt sustained average (thanks Chris for lending me B1 to find them in towards the end of the day!). Best weather was to the SE although Phil and Chris aiming at a 300k Shepton Mallet / Parham got stuck with a blue hole between Salisbury and Southampton which caused them to have to abort the task and head for home. Had they got across it, reports were of excellent conditions to the east as well. To the north however as forecast it wasn't so good - various people tried to go that way and all gave up around Newbury-ish. Around 3pm the nice streets that had been set up all day seemed to dissipate which seemed as if it might be the end of the day, but in fact it continued to work in the blue, and then some splendid streets set up that were still working at 5 when the top cover finally damped it all down.

I finally got to fly the Vega at the end of the day and confirm that it scratches very nicely in the last broken thermal of the day, averaging around 0.2kt from 850' to just over 1000' before I decided it was time to go and try those comforting airbrakes. No need to overshoot anything there, is there!

A great time was had I think by all - including Stephen's 1-day course whose grin was probably a thermal source in itself. I hope we'll see him again.
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Stephen's stats analysis tells us that we did more hours today than any day in the preceding 3 years. We also had several hundred km XC (mainly Chris and Phil's, but also a couple of quick 60k out-and-returns in flights of just an hour or less, and Trevor took the Skylark a-wandering. Well done to all.

No doubt Pete would have added to them in 737, but he was otherwise occupied - completing his Full Category Instructor's qualification, congratulations.

Steve