My Flying

Today the second batch of competition winners were taken for their flights and again, fortunately, the gliding weather was half decent and improving as the day progressed. By the time I launched in the 20, at about 2pm, the sky was about 6/8th overcast with low cloud.

Much to my surprise, and joy, the sky was working and I spent just over an hour having the most fun that I have had in a glider so far this year. Cloud-base was a low 2500ft AGL, but once you were there you could hug the clouds for just enough lift to keep you there. Twice I managed to get about 1/2 to the Slipper, but chickened out when the glide home became marginal.

I landed late that day with a big smile on my face and with a great sense of achievement.

At last a half decent soaring day and no ridge riding or circuits.

There was a great buzz today at the airfield, with tons of excitement. Why? Well today we were taking our first batch of competition winners for their flight in a glider. Our club is desperate to attract new members and in an attempt to fulfill this objective we offered a competition where by the winner(s) could win a flight in a glider.

All the flights were in the Twin using the winch and most had a good 1/2 hour's flight, especially later in the day when the ridge started to work.

During the excitement, and to make use of the ridge, I took a launch in the 20 but was soon down as the ridge wasn’t working that well.

Later in the day, once all the excitement had died down and the prize winners had gone on their merry way I took a launch in the club’s Astir (the 20 was flying the ridge) for a great 1.5 hour flight on our ridge. The best part was that I managed to stay substantially higher, by making use of a combination of the ridge’s lift and thermal bubbles popping off the face, than the 20 flown by the other partner.

Later, after landing and while the sun went down, we spent a long time trying to fish a new string for the right wing's water bag through the wing. Why did we need to do this? Well it seems that at some point, before we took ownership of her, that a rat (or mouse) had made their home in the wing and gnawed away on the string; this was evidenced by rat dropping and lots of chewed up newspaper.

It was an exhausting, but great day.

The weather started off looking iffy, but promising.
I'm still working on my backseat rating in the Twin and decided to go up with an instructor where we had a lowish simulated cable break (no surprise really) and I landed ahead, very well.
In the mean time my partner in the ASW20 took a launch and was gone for the next two hours only to return when the good weather was gone. I took another launch in the Twin, but after fighting for a few minutes I lost and needed to return to earth.

No flying today as we celebrated my daughter's birthday with a party.