Saturday 8 August 2009

First day of the second task week

It's time for our second task wek of the year! Today the briefing room was filled with pilots eagerly waiting to heer what the met forecast was and what tasks had been set. Until last night everyone was really ecited by the prospect of Saturday being a great x-c day. Overnight something happened though and the soundings, RASP and Metcheck were all consistent in their analysis that it wasn't goig to be a very good day. So, we did what all good glider pilots do - we looked at other forecasts, webcams, satellite pics and even looked out of the window in the hope that there'd be something better to cling on to.

Eventually conditions did improve and the Cu began to pop in the distance. And then it overdeveloped and then the sky looked quite iffy for a while. Nonetheless a set of tasks were declared:

214km for the modest and meek - Booker Bridge - Kingsclere - Northampton South - Booker SW - Booker.

300km for the more adventurous - Booker Bridge - Andover - Market Harborough - Booker SW - Booker

400k+ for those who wanted to go to East Anglia (tempted by the comment that the weather at Newmarket was meant to be really good).

So how did the day turn out? Well Denis Campbell did 403km (Booker Bridge - Leicester South - Bury St Edmunds - Stony Stratford - Booker SW - Booker) at 93.2kph. I did 214km at 70kph. Not sure how everyone else went on.

A good start to the task week. Well done Mr Caunt for setting the tasks and getting things rolling. Let's hope there's more to follow.

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