Friday, 15 August 2008

...and it just keeps getting better!

Undoubtedley the best soaring day this year at TIB.


On what must have been a club record for a Friday - it was super soarable from 11am and continued to well after 6pm enabling in excess of 2000km to be clocked up across the board by NGC pilots. Longest flight time was 7hrs 40 min!!
There were many great soaring flights - including 4 first 300km Gold Distance / Diamond Goal flights...
Well done to Tibenham's FANTASTIC FOUR - JRK (ASW19), Gary Marshall (Astir), Jan Atherton (ASW20) and Paul Wilkinson (Std Cirrus) who also completed his Silver by clocking up 5+ hours and gaining his Silver Height. Congratulations also to Berkeley Pittaway for gaining his Silver Height whilst soaring locally.
Will Day flew to Hus Bos and back in his Vega. CFI Mark Wright managed to escape from work for a while and flew his ASW27 round a couple of hundred kms. Jim Lawn flew the tug until 2pm then set off in '20' for a romp round the county for the rest of the afternoon. Harley and Mick had an hour at the seaside soaring the sea breeze (which never got as far as TIB). Locally, John Kinley celebrated his birthday with a couple of hours in a club Astir climbing to cloudbase from a 1500' A/T release. Later on new member, 16 year old Ben Kirk and I took the last launch of the day and enjoyed over an hour and a half in the Grob 103 with a wander down to Knettishall, Great Ashfield and back to complete a wonderful days soaring!



...and amazingly nobody landed out - except Tom Smith who decided to fly to Dunstable for the Regionals which start tomorrow, for a remote finish practice 300km.
Fly Safely, Have Fun.
Ian Atherton.