May 6 mid-week flying

Today was a great gliding day at the Club with lots of lift and lots of sink, but mostly lift prevailed. There were 18 glider flights in all, with the three Club two-seaters airborne as well as the two high performance club ships and a couple of private owner sailplanes.

Club members, Evan Dewe, Jeff Schneider, Bob Pelley, Phil Kerrigan, Wally Wilson, Wolfgang Weichert, Roberto Figueroa, Karl Boutin, and Ffrangcon Vaughan and yours truly instructing all took turns aloft.

At times there was widespread sink up to 10 knots, but if you were lucky enough to make contact when the strong lift hit, and stayed high, you could stay up.  This was exemplified by Wally staying up for 2:18 in the Puchacz (I don't know for sure but he probably included some unusual attitude flying after his Winter in Arizona); Wolfgang stayed up for 2:43 in the Club ASW-20, after first briefing Roberto on the Club M-7.  Then, Roberto had his first flight in the Mike-Seven, and stayed up for 2:51, and is now spoiled for all other aircraft.

ASW-24 (not M7 same type) - one of two high performance gliders available for suitably qualified GGC members

Karl Boutin, after a false start in the outstanding sink mentioned earlier, and a resulting return to the field in about 30 minutes, on a second attempt managed to disappear and not return till about 6:00 p.m, while we were all having refreshments in the Clubhouse.  Ffrangcom stayed up for 2:57 in his ship.

The Club L-23 had six flights with Evan Dewe staying up for 49 minutes and only came down to conserve his finances, and Bob Pelley, with a little guidance did just over an hour.

Our Trusty 'Bluebird' did five flights and stayed up for 1:72 in the hands of Phil Kerrigan, and 1:27 with Jeff Schneider at the helm.

It was a great day, if challenging at times, and thanks go to Simon Dufour for doing all the towing in the Citabria.

Regards,

Douglas