Recent News, July 27th & 28th, 2013

 
This should also include flying for July 16th where Sam Tullett had most of the flights, though one for his father John and a first outing for Glyn Jackson’s Ventus 2.  Best flight of 55 minutes was had by Sam Tullett with Tim Hardwick Smith so I guess the honours of the first soaring flight for the season belongs to them.  John Tullett had 50 minutes in the Twin then 25 minutes for Glyn while Sam was confined to circuit bashing for the final three flights for the day..
 
Then we had to wait for the weekend just gone.  Saturday saw two flights for Dennis Green, 30 minutes and 80 minutes, 81 minutes for Peter Miller.  Peter Cook providing back seat encouragement where required.  My own flight was interesting.  A high tow was to no avail and it was not until we were down to about 1500ft agl that we centred on useful lift and got more than a  1500ft gain to 3000ft plus.  Barrelled off to SE of Toko, back to the golf course at a dis-respectable height for another good gain where we waited for Clinton Steele to have a tow back home to Norfolk.  Les Sharp on towing duties.
 
Sunday the 28th was probably a better soaring day.  A 36 minute flight for Rodrigo De Arteaga with Les Sharp indicated boisterous conditions aloft.  And so it proved just that for Glyn in his Ventus and Peter Cook in his Libelle. Both had flights of nearly three hours.  Apparently the rotor-like conditions abated during the afternoon and they rode a cloud street out towards Te Popo.  Les Sharp was doing OK until he turned the wrong way and gravity won the contest after 39 minutes.
 
What was surprising was the absence of ab-initios apart from Rodrigo.  These were as good a couple of days you could get for this time of the year.
 
We have had two QGP lectures so far and a radio workshop is down for tomorrow evening, the 30th.  This is at the airport, starting at 6.30pm.  We meet at the airport café.
 
WZ’s radio has been rather more u/s than we would like, in spite of quite a bit of work by Peter Williams.  Glyn went down to Stratford early yesterday morning and found a broken wire in the cable, maybe that repair should do the trick.


                           

How Toko looked, bathed in sunshine on Saturday afternoon.  The countryside looking quite green for this time of year.  Peter Cook took the photo.