Recent News, March 14th 2013

Better than …..

This day saw a determined effort to have rather more soaring than the long weekend gave us.  Viv Davy was as usual one of, if not the first to arrive and had the first flight with Tim.  Towed to 3000ft and attended to various exercises which all went well.  Peter Cook having been tempted by the RASP which showed a useful-looking cloud street south from the mountain was next off.  Unfortunately this street was rather better formed to the south than the north so he had to make do with local soaring though he got around a fair bit.  Les Sharp and Peter Miller were next away in WZ.  Did fairly well too, got down past Toko at which point Stratford began to go up as we began to go down.  Managed to come back to the power station (maybe a gas flare-off on the way back, helped) then some snatches of lift became whole bunches of lift in a thermal that Les worked very well, getting a 2000ft gain.  Would have even been better I’m sure, but for a helicopter below us doing a photo shoot of the power station and obviously sucking the good bits out of our thermal!!

Tim Hardwick-Smith, allegedly in Stratford to get a load of fertiliser for the farm, was next away in the Discus.  He covered a lot of ground but the sky had its limits and he was unable to push forward onto the Pouakais.  Contented himself with a foray to Eltham and round-about.  Will Hopkirk, allegedly in town to get spare parts for a pump managed to collar tow pilot Ralph Gibson as he was about to leave, towed off in TE and found good lift with Peter and Tim over Midhurst and the York Road area, finishing off over the town and power station.

A good day really, all flights better than the flight envelope of a demented chook.



  This photo shows the effect of summer drainage on the 09/27 vector.  The airfield and surrounding farmland used to be a swamp.  Re-shaping and extensive drainage of the airfield was done during the 1980's.