Day one of the Auster Fly-In Weekend. Tim D ran the day with what turned out to be an all Aero-Tow day. There were a number of A/X flights and lots of local soaring. Good organisation for the fly-in meant it gave no interference with gliding ops (thanks to John C, Phil M and Mike B). A number of private owners rigged and set off XC. Ian was first off trying a 500 with Bob (fresh back from the Std Nats) soon following on a 300 triangle. Jenny, Simon, Tony, Mark and Norman all set tasks and joined in later. The weather was rather trickier than it looked with scrappy thermals at times, then monster climbs of up to 8kts on the averager. Both Ian and Bob had to dump water early to stay airborne, then found themselves wishing they still had it when the conditions improved as they pushed into wind. In the end there were a couple of landouts as the day deteriorated. Bob completed his 300km task, but Ian was running just a bit too late and couldn't quite make the final TP (CAX) as the day died to the west, though having had to abandon just 20km short of CAX he did manage to claw his way home with the aid of a tail-wind and the last remnants of the day (which unusually lasted longer in the east) for a creditable 458km and 7 Hrs 24 min airborne. All totalled over 1500km was flown from TIB today.
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Tonight there was a club BBQ for the Fly-In folks.
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Tom Smith, Chris Lawrence and James Francis are all at Dunstable flying the Juniors - Tom won day one! Follow the action at: http://juniors.onglide.com/current-day.xml
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