As usual with club meet days the ‘day’ started for me a few days earlier, building to a peak the evening before with several hours on the mobile to try and ensure all those attending would be singing from the same hym sheet! As well as collecting Nairn’s wing in case he ended up with a walk up as family commitments ment he would be arriving late morning.
A lot more ‘mobile’ time on the morning followed on from the normal (FIVE THIRTY… AM!) MET office weather check and printing out, along with ensuring enough maps were printed from the Memory Map software of the flying site and landing locations for members new to this site (including ME!) this is done with an eye to the wind directions & forecast conditions.
Final equipment loading & checking all done and it was on the road to Braemar with enough spare time avaliable to drive around Morrone to assess the landings at first hand to the NE valley, an area I was not familiar with.
With the first batch all on location the estate Landrover driven by Barry and the club pickup loaded with wings and a couple of bodies started up the track, the plan being to get the first group sorted, checked, test flown on tandem (new site) where needed and then back down for Nairn, Joe & Ian etc. who were arriving about 11:30 – 12:00 ish, as it happened Barry did the second drive as I was teaching his older son Ryan on G-BZJI.
With the second group all on the hill top and Nairn, Ian Archer, Jonathan having had a check flight on the tandem, solo flying & training was the order for the rest of the day in very nice light smooth (and sunny) mild conditions, till just before sundown when, as forecast, conditions quickly started to pickup.
With solo flying underway Ryan, Barry’s older son to started tandem flying, getting two 15-20 min flights with most of the time on the controls (his first flight while Barry was driving the ‘second batch’ to the hill top).
Barry’s youngest (photos) son Lee up on the Philou 29 rigged as a tandem, as Joe who had had the wing on loan had brought it back which was perfect as Lee being only three would have been too light for the normal tandem gliders! Once Lee had flown a few times his dad, deciding he could not go home without having flown it was back to G-BZJI then a LOT more retrive driving and fitting in a few solo flights on students and my own wings.
The final BIG fly down was delayed by a few problems (mentioned elsewhere!) so with Nairn high out front and starting to feel it was getting ‘intresting’ as soon as the Vertex was off the ground it was one quick beat to gain just enough height and cut back low over the hill… flying through the wind shear (NB. not rotor) and often passing instructions on the radio made for (I am told!) some ‘very intresting’ views of the TOP of my wing by those down on the ground at the LZ… still no Murray adrenaline was released (is that a scary thing?) but for safety I sent Nairn over to the far side of the valley (lift but better air) while I punched down to the river ‘jumped’ the water just and no more at tree level (don’t try this at home!) and ‘spotted in’ to a nice clear field suitable for Nair landing in.. on the radio and it was Big Ears and turns/360* for Nair to work his way down, at one point after letting the ears back out he was going up again showing just how good the performance of his wing is!
But pulling in the ears again and he did a very nice job of getting low, so once below the wind shear (upper wind V very light/nil valley wind.. boundary) layer he had a sweet approach to a nice nil wind landing… still buzzing, glad to be on the ground but very pleased with the Big Ears and turns… a short walk to ‘chill’ while Alan C drove me with the wings back to the parking at the bottom of the track 5 mins away..