The day started with heavy cloud cover, light winds, darkening through the afternoon before eventually opening out into a beautiful, sunny, summers evening. I (Jonty) had rather given up on the idea of completing my 2 hr cross country endorsement flight. But with the K8 siting on launch and a cable ready to go, a sunny hangar flight at 4:45pm seemed like a nice way to end the day. Luck would have it that the Cu’s, we had been observing in the distance, finally reached us. Staying up was a real possibility but surely there wasn’t enough time left in the day?
Well thanks to the patience of ground crew and enthusiasm of those who took to the sky with me. We all flew long into the early evening and I think I may just have made the 2 hrs. Only the logger knows for sure. Thank you to all those who stayed late and allowed it to happen and to Bob for leading me his credit card to buy folks a beer at the Plough afterwards!
STOP PRESS: Sorry everyone apparently I failed by 36 secs according to one of our official observers. His review reads: “I measure the landing at 17:46:14 UTC and release at 15:46:50 UTC so unfortunately, as the requirement is from release, not take off, I have to conclude this is short by 36 seconds. Taken from take-off, the flight would have been exactly 2 hours (within 4 secs).” How gutted do I feel……
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