A cracking day at the airfield! Forecast said it would be blue, but with a cold night and a warm (ish) day we were hoping for thermals anyway. Gavin was Duty dog, and when I arrived the kit was all out and ready to be taken to the eight acre. Danny C, having not flown for a while, was first up in DVX with Gavin, and they had 15 minutes off the first launch. This was enough to get the rest of us moving and I went next in the K8, and after an initial scrabble found it progressively easier as the clouds built up. Cloud base wasn't high - it moved from c1800' to 2200' over the hour, but the vis wasn't bad, and the thermals were plentiful. I could see Danny & Gavin having a long soaring flight under neighbouring clouds. Rowan in C2, and Alan L in HMB both took to the air late morning and had good soaring flights. Alan went down to Nympsfield and back, reporting that cloud base got no higher than about 3100' - at Nympsfield the encroaching sea air was hitting the prevailing wind and making conditions quite poor.
Back at Shenington pretty much everyone who flew, trial lessons and club members, had decent soaring flights. The K8 spent most of the day in the air. Steve T took it after me, then Bill Gordon converted to the K8 and had a couple of good flights in it to consolidate. David S had a long flight in the later blue conditions, and even the hangar flight was fun, getting back up to aerotow height off the winch. Gavin kept Danny very busy (and exercised!) with a succession of launch failure practices, so the flying is obviously going well!
A big thanks to Andy and Eric who drove the winch all day without flying - their launches were great, and their help as always was much appreciated. A very enjoyable day all round.
DIY continued....how many gliding club members does it take to fit a dislodged flue pipe??
