Another sunny day, but a short day predicted so an Assigned Area task was set, based around Edgehill, Ravensthorpe Reservoir, Bozeat and Banbury West, and with a time of 3 hours. The weather didn't look great so we gridded and waited (and ate cake) for things to improve. The time was reduced to 2 hours given the predicted shut off time, which we all believed having been caught out the day before!
So launching began, and being on the back of the grid it didn't look too great! We all milled around for a while, then conditions seemed to decay as the start gate opened. About a third of people started, presumably because they thought it was better to get away from site, and about a third landed back as it because very difficult to stay up. The remainder, having launched late on the grid, were lucky enough to stay airborne, and although it looked fairly poor on track it looked better than over Edgehill so the rest of us went!
Oddly enough the day cycled again, and got better out to the North East. Didn't have to worry about airspace as couldn't get high enough for Daventry to be a problem! Some of us did the minimum task, expecting the weather to decay, but in fact it got much better on the last leg into Shenington so that was probably not the best option! Others such as Tim and Poz went off into the sectors and found good conditions there too. Ben in C34 set off an hour after everyone else and decided to see how far he could get before the day shut off - he got round with honours, and in fact the day lasted much longer than we expected. Tim F won the day again - bit of a pattern developing here!
In the evening it was curry night so John & I were kept busy in the kitchen with lots of help from Lucy, Bob King and Rowan. For once we served up on time (no rice disasters this year!) which was excellent news as we had an awesome talk in the hangar afterwards from Alan Chubb, about his time flying with the Red Arrows in the 1980s. We ran out of chairs in the hangar, and it was very much a full house - thanks Alan!