Another inspiring day. Winch launch only today (thanks to Phil M. for driving the winch) and the few of us that flew did manage some decent soaring. After a misty start the weak inversion burst earlier than expected and Cu had formed by 11am with a low base. We decided to wait a while. As the cloudbase rose so did the inversion & the dew point, and the Cu was rapidly squeezed as the day went blue, or as Adrian put it; " The cloud bottoms are catching up with the tops!"
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Mick Hughes and Paul Woodcock went off for an hour in the G103, landing about 1pm. They reported climbs to 2,500ft so I took off in 'LY' with 100km planned and after a bit of a scratchy getaway I was soon off into wind towards Bungay. I never find it that easy in the blue but I did finally get round my 100km task landing around 3:30 pm.
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Meanwhile Adrian had set off a bit later and found himself flying round the TP at Bungay in the encroaching sea air. The thermals that Hardwick runway were kicking off earlier were gone by the time he got back there and he made a safe outlanding, with Paul Wilkinson off on the retrieve shortly after. The soaring window lasted about 4 hours, with the cloudbase reaching over 2,500ft by 1pm and climbs reaching 3,500ft at best around 2:30pm. Thermal strengths varied but averaged 1-2 knots with 3.5kts the best I saw on the averager. The useful X/C window was probably about 2hrs30.
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The Diss Express has a good article on the club at;
Ian.
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