Thursday Outcome

I thought someone who flew a good flight would post!

Thursday turned out pretty much as expected except it didn't go blue in the SW. Longest flight was flown out of Lasham by Dave Masson at 719k twice up and down to the Welsh borders. The fastest by Dave Watt out of Bicester round Lasham and Ledbury 300k at 100kph.

In contrast I decided to fly a 300 round Cerne Abbas and Frome. The day started with cloudbase just above 3000ft above Booker and the first leg was pretty miserable. I never seemed to get a climb out of which I was able to take more than 500ft without moving on until I got beyond Salisbury where I started to get good climbs to cloudbase at about 4500ft.

By then the sea breeze was in full flow and a convergence line had set up between me and my first turn. The cloudbase was low and soggy and I gave up about 12k out from CER. On reflection, I guess if I back tracked and took a big cloud climb I would have been able to round the turn and get back to the good air. Who knows?

The next climb I took from about 1500ft near Wincanton to 5500ft cloudbase and really whizzed along round Frome and past Keevil. Here things took a turn for the worst and I ended up low at Welford. But not as low as Geoff Tabbner or the three gliders below me in the fields! I did scratch a 1000ft which got me to a good climb and on towards home.

Took what I thought would be a last climb at Goring but had a very poor glide and had to top up 400ft at Stonor to get in over the hedge to land ahead. 280k of my 310 task completed at 83Kph left me a bit disappointed but a nice day out nevertheless. Should have listened to a weather expert and followed Nils!

Jim