Flying Report 1/4/14

Today turned out to be a really good day after a slow start. The day started with light drizzle and low cloud and things did not look promising. The one good thing was that the wind was very light and variable and so we were able to set up outside the clubhouse.

At around 11-45 a nice blue hole appeared in the cloud and we launched to find the cloudbase, it was 1100` and rising rapidly, it was also thermic although very weak.

After that we did not look back and flew until nearly 6pm. The thermals did stay weak but it was very warm and sunny and I think everyone had a good day. A few congratulations are in order, well done to John G. for re-soloing after a long break, especially satisfying as John had been coming down for the last few weeks and been unable to fly for various reasons. Well done to George the Poet for insisting on doing cable breaks on a very difficult day and coping extremely well with everything I threw at him and finally I had the privilege of flying with Phil P. who had not flown since last October ! I can assure everyone he has not lost one jot of his skill, of course he also had the longest flight of the day, surprise, surprise.

So onto the statistics,

Total Launches…………..40.

Total Flight Time………….4hrs. 51mins. (Lots of simulated cable breaks in there as well).

Longest Flight…………….21mins. (As above, well done to Phil but closely followed by David S. in the K18 with 20mins and Geoff G. and Roger H. in the T21.).

Average Flight Time………7min. (Would have been a lot more but for the cable breaks.)

Thanks to everyone who came and stayed even though it looked very grim early on and apologies to Bob H. for the weather not clearing up soon enough for him to fly.

See you soon, Steve P.