Bath, Wiltshire & North Dorset Gliding Club April Update

27th April

Devon coast seen just after turning Bude with Alastair in 306.

26th April

With 40 launches today & many 100’s of km’s flown & hours logged it was a gr& day, if a somewhat slow process for the thermals to get going. Climbs to over 5000ft were the norm.

So congratulation go to Alan Bennet for completing a two hour flight off the winch & gaining his Silver Height in the process. Mark Smallwood got to fly his Pegase & Bill Prince survived an aerotow check with yours truly.

We finally got the hangar stacked & the doors closed at 18:30 then a few minutes later a glider from Nympsfield landed & wanted an aerotow retrieve. Gordon was the only person not to have sunk a pint or two by then so having done 14 tows already another was called for, alas this was probably the first time that we have put the tug three rows back so had to unstack the hangar again – all good fun, hangar doors closed at 19:40.

21st April

Mid-Week Flyers on Form

Wednesday 20th April saw a chilly start to the morning, but the cloud started to separate, the ground warmed up & the private gliders came out en-masse for some good soaring conditions (at least until I went up a bit too late in the day..). LPM is still on its back, but JKW was in active use & some flew FUY solo. Chris demonstrated the art of delegation in running the LPC (from the seated position), although she was caught temporarily off guard hooking on JKW (evidence attached).  The great news of the day was Mike sending Roland solo – apparently his 13th solo having flown multiple fixed wing & helicopters in his career in the AAC – the last time however was in the early 1990’s, so a big congrats to Roland, & no doubt he will be onto LPM before too long to make it 14! Now for Rowan to catch up with his Dad!

Looking forward to the Flying Week next week!