Five pilots chanced the weather today and it turned out to be a gamble that paid off!
Flying was again from the main North/South runway, the wind was 3/6mph and the surface dried out by 11am.
Lots of flights were recorded, with only one mishap, a model tip stalled on landing knocking the undercarriage off.
Paul had a lucky escape, running through pre-flight control surface checks the elevator control clevis snapped, a lucky escape indeed and highlights the importance of a thorough pre-flight check routine.
Thursday was the clubs first meeting back after the summer break and was held at the Harrogate Cricket Club.
There were a number of topics discussed covering all aspects from the state of the mower and buying a petrol strimmer to remove grass and weeds from the runway and clearing landing circles for Gliders to getting nominations in early for club trophies and the AGM.
Attendance was not great and the low turnout was put down to the long break since the last meeting and the high number of members with motor homes who were still on their holidays.
The official meeting business closed at 9pm and the members who remained after were treated to a presentation from Paul Wellacott (our membership secretary) on F3/5L glider flying both for sport and competition, the presentation touched on the finer points of thermal soaring and was most interesting presentation.
The promised sunshine didn’t appear and it was a grey overcast day, model orientation was a challenge in the morning and Steve’s high visibility glasses were in demand !
The wind direction meant that we were again on the North-South runway with the wind coming directly down the centre.
Two maidens today, Paul flew his Sukhoi 29 and Andy had one flight with his 4m Vertigo F5J. not a day for thermal soaring but a good day for trimming, and as luck would have it, it flew really well, just a few evenings now programming all the thermal mode mixes in!
Everyone had a good day, with no mishaps recorded.
The forecasted rain turned up at about 2pm, so a leisurely pack up and home to get those lipo’s storage charged.
To say the conditions were mixed today would be something of an understatement, we saw everything but snow!
Arriving at Dishforth to torrential rain and the prospect of no flying to the sun briefly “cracking the flags” to wind then flat calm then swinging wildly making it interesting for us glider pilots, the power flyers having awkward wind directions but this didn’t stop the flying and at the end of the day a good time was had by all.
My first flight saw abundant lift as the sun dried up the runway and I clocked a 28 min “test” flight while Paul who was already flying when i arrived clocked a 45 minute flight.
Next flights weren’t so good and lift became harder to find until we were flying in near dead air and decided to call it a day.
to sum the day up i’d say challenging but still fun!
Saturday at Dishforth was a Borderline no fly day due to the wind which was gusting to 26mph! What a contrast to the previous week when runway temperatures were in the mid 30 degrees!
We elected to fly from the North South runway which gives plenty of space to allow for swing on take-off and extended downwind finals.
6 members along with 2 prospective members flew today, all power as the conditions weren’t the best for thermal soaring.
Not many flights were recorded due to the breeze, and all but one had a fly, it was still a worthwhile exercise as a social gathering and the banter was great fun.
Landings were becoming a bit precarious as the wind speed increased, and it was decided that in the interest of safety (and the risk of breaking a model) we’d end flying at about 2pm.
Saturday was probably one of the hottest days at Dishforth this year, with a recorded 36 degrees on the car outside temperature gauge!
There were 3 silent flyers and 4 power flyers attended today, the site was in good condition but there was a lot of activity off the runways as the farmer was mowing and bailing the grass, this affected the choice of flight line for the Glider pilots who ended up on the North South runway quite a way down towards the hangers.
Andy Shutt and Paul Wellacott were flying their 2 meter competition gliders trying to better their flight times set last week, the wind was coming directly over the fence from the A1 which made conditions tricky and low level lift was very disturbed. Mike Harris was Flying his favoured ‘T’ tail models and had some good flights, but by 1pm the ground was so heat soaked that lift was very sparse.
The power pilots had a good day too, as there was a steady breeze and little to no gusting the power flight line was busy, the only disruption to the day was when the wind swung later on which forced a change to flying across the main runway and using the end of the “dirty” runway.
all in all it was a full day of flying and flying concluded at around 4:30pm.
