Thermal Glider Day - October 18,
2008
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Yes despite the photos below,
it was a thermal glider day. What started out to be a promising day
turned out to be quite windy and
after a few trial flights, this put
a few
pilots
off risking
their models.
Consequently we decided on just having a bit of fun rather than a full
competition. Participants were Gerry de Groot, Greg Robertson, Dave
Jacobs, Geoff Hays and George
Carnie.
Gerry
had
some
pushrod problems
and retired
his model, Dave flew but the conditions became
rather gusty so he retired, Geoff flew his model but it unfortunately
succumed to an in flight failure
and crashed but the model is repairable.
That left Greg and me to fight it out. There was very little lift and
the best I could extract from my Silent Dream was about 71/2 minutes.
That time led
the field for a while but as usual Greg persisited and on his last flight
he blew me away with a flight in excess of 16 minutes. No chance of me
beating it because the winch battery (owned by Greg)
had conveniently gone flat! I don't think I would have got there anyway.
Despite the conditions, there was a deal of enthusiasm and so a future
Thermal Glider comp is planned when conditions
might be more favourable. In addition the club has invested in a new
battery rather than keep borrowing Greg's.
The lack of thermal flying
ensured there was plenty of opportunity for sports flying and as the
photos attest, they seemed to enjoy themselves.
