My Flying

The thermal predictions looked good(ish) for today, but only for a small window period of about two hours. We hauled the planes out to 26 and started with winch launches. Most reported back a few bubbles, but nothing much. The sky started to look better and better with nice cu's popping all over the place, but mainly up wind.

When the time looked right I hauled the 20 onto the runway for my turn at a launch. What followed was 1.5 hours of pure frustration as the winch's cable gave endless problems and for some unfathomable reason the ground crew tried to fix the problem cable while I sat on the grid instead of using the spare cable on the second drum that was fitted just that morning. Huge frustration as I sat in the plane watching the weather turn as the window started to close.

When I did eventually take to the sky there was strong lift around, but very broken and bumpy. I only managed to get away when I found a nice bump just before turning base and elected to use it and not to land. With much scratching I clawed myself up from 600 ft to 2200 ft before I went exploring. During this explorer I managed to find nice pockets of strong sink and needed to head back to the airfield. Cost for the day, one which launch.