It was overcast and remained so for the entire day. Thermals were almost non-existent and were really isolated bubbles. The wind was very light and highly variable but mostly NE – all except above 1300 ft where the airspeed consistently jumped from 55 thru to 65 kts during the launch. This resulted in broken weak links and cables despite the efforts of people flying and the winch drivers. FQW was dragged out as was KRO and MI. John Dunstall did extremely well in MI and clawed away to 3,000 ft for half an hour or so for flight of the day. KRO wasn’t so lucky and only managed to extend the circuit on a few flights. The rest of the time was circuit bashing. With the wind effectively nil, there had some interesting circuit directions. A few notable achievements:
- Hugh Round worked on sideslips and then attempted to master steep turns. He later went to look at outlanding paddocks with Derek in FQW
- Josh Carr got back into the swing of doing landings, both in FQW and KRO
- All the AEFs got flown, both in FQW and KRO
- Sam Taylor-Burdon went solo, but broke the cable
And it was after Sam’s solo flight where the day changed. The wind sprang up from the NW and we changed runway ends. In the middle of the end change came some rain which was enough to prevent Sam from soloing again. We did a hangar run in KRO and called it a day.