Tuesday 30th to Wednesday 31st May 2023.
Posted: 01/06/2023 13:39
Tuesday 30th. The light to moderate wind continued to blow from the NNE and bring in an overcast, this being low enough to delay the start of flying until around 1130 hrs, but then rose sufficiently to allow normal AT release heights. The overcast tended to break up around 1500 hrs although reforming later. The Tuesday evening group's activities led to flying extending to 2127 hrs, adding on to the daytime flying, resulting in a day's total of 37 ATs off runway 02. Some sporadic thermal activity during the day and some weak wave in the evening led to 10 flights of over 30 minutes with 4 of these over an hour. Clive Swain/Duncan Pask in K21 JVZ set the ball rolling with 1:04 in weak thermal, climbing to 3,200 asl while flying locally, with visitors Johnson/Thomas in their DG1000t having 1:31, but having to use their engine to recover from below 900' asl while south of the site. Clive Swain, this time with John Dore in the DG500, had 1:01 locally, their best altitude being 2,900' asl, while Guy Harland/Roger Taylor had 42 minutes in JVZ maintaining 2,500' to 2,900' asl. The wave flights all came towards the end of the evening, with Kelly Teagle/Steve Morgan finding some weak wave on a NW/SE beat between Sutton village and Felixkirk, enabling them to maintain between 2,800' and 3.400' asl during their 52 minute flight. Toby Wilson/Stuart Wallace then had an hour in the DG500, on a similarly orientated beat between Sutton village and Kilburn, initially maintaining the same altitude as Kelly and Steve, but later operating between 3,400' and 3,700' asl. Dominic Hammond, flying K21 KLW solo had a slow climb to 3.900' asl some 3-4 km ENE of the site during his flight of 47 minutes, while Sarah Stubbs had 40 minutes as she climbed to the same altitude in the same area in Astir DPO. Steve Thompson/Dan McClean in JVZ had 34 minutes off the last flight of the day as the light faded.
Wednesday 31st. With little change in the synoptic situation, the light to moderate NNE'ly wind continued to bring in extensive cloud, this being low enough to restrict release heights to around 1000' QFE when flying got under way off runway 02 around 1230 hrs. The base of the overcast slowly rose, allowing release heights to increase first to 1500' and then 2,500' QFE by early afternoon before lowering again from mid afternoon. The day's total of 18 ATs resulted in no flights over 30 minutes and only 5 over 20 minutes, the longest being 27 minutes for one of the day's 8 First Flight pupils off the day's highest AT of 2,600' QFE. C Scott, first with C Rudy and then with Eric Rudy in K21 KLW, used weak thermals to briefly maintain 2,000' asl in their flights of 23 minutes, while I Webb/J Webb in K21 JVZ found a thermal strong enough to climb 100' above their release height of 2,600' asl.
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