Friday 22nd. Active fronts associated with an Atlantic depressions brought 12 mm of rain to the site, as well as keeping it in cloud for the majority of daylight hours, the clearance coming later as the wind, a moderate to fresh SE’ly to start, eventually veered to become W’ly by the end of the day. The result, no flying.
Saturday 23rd. High pressure, centred to the SE, kept the site in a light to moderate SSE’ly and, with high cover, 33 ATs were flown off runway 20 behind either the Eurofox or the Super Cub. The newer Eurofox also made an appearance as it continued with its flight testing in the hands of Dick Cole. The pre certification testing will be concluded shortly with a flight test at maximum all up weight before the paper work is despatched to the CAA. The day’s flying included that for 8 Scouts and a Scouter from Thirsk and Boroughbridge troops, as well as 3 First Flight pupils, and while no one exceeded an hour aloft, 5 flights exceeded 30 minutes as the western end of the southern ridge provided some relief from steady sink. Andy Hatfield also reported some stronger lift that enabled him to climb back towards his release height of 3,000′ QFE in the DG303. This stronger lift was associated with an upwind bonfire, while some weak wave also helped Andy get to and maintain height at 2,700′ QFE for a significant proportion of his 35 minute flight, before fading light led to a landing at 1650 hrs. Others to record flight times of >30 minutes included Chris Gill and guest Miss Natlass, who eked out 35 minutes on the south ridge after initially indulging in some aerobatics in K21 KLW, Colin Troise who had the same duration but without any company as he flew the DG500 solo, Brian Wise and Chris Haresnape who had 31 minutes in K21 JVZ and Graham Taylor who had the same time in Astir BDO.