A nice little break in the weather gave us 5W and plenty of headroom all day. As an added bonus, the wind picked up for the final hour making the ridge soarable.
New junior members Theo and Holly are making great progress with their flying, both completing their first landings today. Martin Sloan was checked out and put in some more solo time in the K23; Richard Bennett (The “Book”) finished off his annual; Liz Adlard’s dual was as impeccable as ever; Matt Cook took time off briefly from his work fitting out the new MT shed for three solo aerobatic flights in the K21 (those Humpties are coming on nicely, Matt); Mark Wakem kept himself current in the K23 and Matt Clements (a visitor from Marham en route to Devon!) enjoyed himself and is looking forward to making a return visit.
So, an excellent day and thanks to the duty team; Dave Brown launched us; Darce handled launch direction and Denise whizzed the trial lessons round with her usual bonhomie; thanks also to Simon and Clive for helping with instruction.
If I could make a small plea here … there were no bookings for today, but lots of members turned up. This is great of course, but from an operational point of view if we are forewarned via the bookings system of the likely activity level, we can try to ensure that we have sufficient instructor availability to satisfy the demand, so we don’t disappoint anyone. (We were fortunate on this occasion that Liz had dragged Simon along with her, and that he was happy to step into the breach!)
Winter bookings should be made via email at mgcbooking@gmail.com which is monitored continuously – the office email and phone line much less so over this period. If you can do this please, it will help us to help you.
Some optimism for the coming week (remembering that the club is closed for flying Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday unless advised otherwise for particularly good days) – the wind is swinging generally westerly, so keep an eye on it.
My favourite weather sources over the winter are the BBC forecast for Church Stretton and the RASP Blipspot at http://rasp.inn.leedsmet.ac.uk/BlipspotG.html (set the “BGA Turning Point” to MYN) which gives more detail of wind speed and direction over the day, as well as the all-important likely cloud base, (remembering of course to subtract 1400 from the numbers to give the cloud base above our airfield). It’s only a guide of course, but a useful one – your own personal seaweed may well tell you otherwise!
Hope to see you there soon.
Mark