A good weekend of flying started with a few hours of thermals on Friday 28th February. Barry Lytollis & Ken Sangster took the Ka21 for a mutual flight of an hour in quite decent thermals, as Barry's photo shows.
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| That's the way Ken ! |
Saturday saw wave set up, initially at the mouth of the valley where Steve Marriott climbed steadily away. Others soon joined him and started to explore further afield with the best lift being at the bottom of the Langleford Valley. Steve Marriott & Steve Rae both reached 5000'. The lift ran in zig-zag lines and it was possible to go down to Cornhill and then back up the Tweed, right over Ken Marston's house at Pressen. As the day progressed it became more unstable until quite strong thermals set up and produced some big showers which finally stopped us flying.
Sunday looked and felt very benign on the ground and the first few launches returned to the site without any soaring. Your blogger took a tow to Doddington and was rewarded by a steadily improving climb, eventually reaching 8000' The wind aloft was quite strong, 48 kts at one point, and the wave kept changing but several good flights were achived before, as had happened on Saturday, showers eventually got the better of the wave. A good weekend's flying but dampened by the sad news about Malcolm Parkes - he would have enjoyed it !
