I know that last Thursday was great, but many of us were actually at work then!! It was with relief that the forecast for Sunday promised a decent day. We arrived late morning to find Gavin and his team of Mary's lodgers (is anyone allowed to lodge with Mary and not fly??) already pinging people off the winch. George had his mosquito out, Alistair had the K6e ready, and Paul D had decided to get the new Skylark BNN in the air. We Paul & Andy L helped rig BNN - very relaxed as just the lovely light wingtips to add - then off she went to the launch point.
I was lucky to get into the K8 just as the day opened up....a fantastic winch launch (thanks Dave) up to 1500ft then into a strong thermal and in no time I was looking down at the launch point, which was rapidly emptying of gliders. It was quite windy aloft, and the mosquito and Skylark had already disappeared up wind along a fantastic cloud street that gave lift almost continuously for about an hour. The Duo came out too and quickly disappeared. Every so often I had to soar the upwind side of the cloud to stay out of the wispies as the cloud base was only about 3000ft. Paul in BNN saw lots of gliders coming out low from Bidford over Shipston, I spotted a couple very low by Kineton but then they disappeared. Poor guys at Bidford have been running a Regionals during the latest bout of appalling weather and this was their last day - thank goodness they managed to get another task out of it, even though not the easiest day given the wave influence and low cloud base. Not many places to land yet either....
I took the glider back and swopped winch slots with Dave P. Whilst there we had quite a few landbacks, as we suddenly seemed to get stuck in a wave slot with a big blue hole. We had quite a few landouts from Bidford (including Alan & Trish!) - Gary & Dave G were kept busy towing them home. Gavin was kept busy with students such as Dee and doing checks with Leslie, Alex & Patrick. Gail took some visitors flying, and Clive flew the tug with a friend in the early evening. Graham Paul arrived back from the Bidford Regionals by air, having made it round the task in fairly difficult conditions.
Happy pilots about to launch!! Just look at that sky. BNN is a very elegant glider, perfectly painted for a British summer day.
