The good news was that the wheel box clogging cut grass had been cleared from the north end of the field. The bad news was that grass at the south end wasn’t cut and the wind was from the north west. Fortunately, not too long to stop us flying.
Everything was set-up fairly early but a delay in getting started as Andrew B and Bill C figured out why the Flarm had stopped working in the Puchacz and it started to rain. Once the rain cleared it didn’t look exactly inviting but we launched anyway and much to our surprise (and delight) Charles Mc found a thermal and took us to cloudbase at 3,000′. Racing along under the cloud (sometimes with some brake) we discovered the lift covered a large area. Chris K took the second launch in the K8, borrowed our thermal and went on to set the target duration of the day of 1:04. It looked as if that might be beaten when Rob J appeared to still have plenty of height in the K13 as the clock approached the hour. However, he was logged back after 1:03 – it just so happens that Chris K logged him down (no rivalry between syndicate partners?). Alan B was sitting next to Chris at the time and certified that the correct landing time was logged 🙂
Not every launch resulted in a soaring flight but all barr 2 had some reasonable soaring. “King of the Castle” honours was shared by Rob J, Rod H and Steve B who all found the 4,000′ cloudbase later on in the afternoon.
Comments