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DECEMBER 2002
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Christmas Holidays: There was some flying during the
holidays with people available most days. The best day was Hogmany with
quite a few people soaring the Dallas ridge. Steve Young was able to contact
some very rough wave in the Rothes area and reached the dizzy heights of
5,000 ft. At least the sun was shining.
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Sunday 22nd: Flying would have been possible but it
was one of these days when it would just be within limits. Work was done on
the new clubhouse project instead.
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Saturday 21st: Flying again with a grand total of 17
launches, no soaring to speak of though.
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Sunday 15th: For the first time in what seems like an
eternity there was some flying. No soaring just a few launches on a flat
calm day with 8/8 cloud cover.
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Saturday 14th: No flying.
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Satutday 7th / Sunday 8th: Again no flying due to the
horrid weather.
NOVEMBER 2002
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Weekend 30th / 1st Dec: Yet another weekend lost due
to wet weather. Some work was done around the site with the holes filled in
that were the result of recent flooding. Thanks to Rick Jones the Janus C of
A is complete and it is rigged and ready to go if we ever get some decent
weather.
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At the recent Sportmoray Awards Night our CFI, Robert
Tait, was given the special achievement award, sponsored by the Elgin
Rotary Club. This was in recognition of his outstanding 500 km flight in May
that started and finished at Easterton and for which he gained his diamond
distance badge. What made the flight even more remarkable is that it was
only the fourth time it had ever been done in Scotland in thermal and in a
fairly low performance glider as well. ........More info.
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Weekend 23rd / 24th: Some excellent looking wave
in the sky during the week and at the weekend. The weather gods however
decided it should rain buckets during the night making the strip too wet and
boggy to use.
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Weekend 16th / 17th: Two and a half inches of rain in
the 48 hours preceding this weekend caused the stream that runs in the
culvert under the strip to overflow on to the strip on Saturday. Thankfully
damage to the strip was minimal mainly due to the extra pipes that were put
in recently and Tony's ongoing work on the site drainage. By Sunday the rain
had stopped and water levels on the site had dropped dramatically. Flying
might have been possible on Sunday but most of the membership couldn't get
to the site. This was due to the fact that most of the rest of Moray was
severely flooded with many roads blocked, bridges washed away and several
roads blocked by landslips.
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Sunday 10th: Heavy overnight rain left the strip very
boggy, this combined with strong winds in the morning meant another days
flying was lost to the weather.
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Saturday 9th: Light winds, mostly circuits with the
longest flight around 20 minutes.
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Sunday 3rd: The K.21 has made a welcome return after
its extended holiday in Yorkshire. A moderate southerly wind was giving wave
up to 9,000 ft although it did tend to shift around quite a lot during the
day. Later in the day those that couldn't get into the wave were able to fly
the Dallas ridge up to 2,000 ft and easily make it back to Easterton.
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Saturday 2nd: Wind and rain, no flying.
OCTOBER 2002
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Sunday 27th: Heavy showers for most of the day, no
flying.
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Saturday 26th: Westerly winds with the ridge working
for most of the day and some elusive wave around in the afternoon. 27
launches, 29 hours and 27 minutes flying and no rain before sunset!
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Friday 25th: As if we hadn't had enough rain it
poured down again for most of the day. The poor grass runway is almost at
saturation point and is not getting a chance to dry out.
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Thursday 24th: Westerly winds backing south-westerly,
the ridge was working and late in the day some lucky people got into weak
wave. Robert Tait and a visitor had the best of the wave getting to just
over 7,000 ft in the BGA Duo Discus.
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Monday 21st to Wednesday 23rd: Northerly winds and
almost continuous heavy rain for 3 days.
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Sunday 20th: Calm winds and clear sunny skies for the
best part of the day. There was some local soaring in thermal in the
afternoon. It turned very cold at dusk with water that was being used to
wash the gliders turning to ice.
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Saturday 19th: Westerly winds with the ridge working intermittently
during the day. At least there was flying between the showers of sleet. We
welcomed our visitors from Norfolk GC for their second week with us.
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Wednesday 16th to Friday 18th: Wind, rain, hail
sleet, snow. No flying and some fairly depressed looking pilots who have
taken a week off.
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Tuesday 15th: The wind was again E/NE but with some
rather prolonged showers. Mike again managed to soar in the Ben Rinnes area
in his Nimbuus 3D, today it was the turn of Anne Burgess to share the flight
with Mike.
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Monday 14th: The wind was light E/NE, occasional
showers of rain. Mike Foreman and Martin Knight managed 3 hours in Mike's
Nimbus 3D and got to 5,300 ft in almost unknown easterly wave just
east of Ben Rinnes.
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Saturday 12th / Sunday 13th: No flying this weekend
due to low cloud and rain.
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Sunday 6th: 28 launches, 10 hours 41 minutes
flying, longest flight was Peter Goodfellow in the Junior with 1 hour 16
minutes.
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Saturday 5th: No flying today.
SEPTEMBER 2002
AUGUST 2002
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Saturday 31st: It was a flying day but no exact
information available at the moment.
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NEW CLUBHOUSE: Real progress is being made on the new
clubhouse now. The external block work is up, most of the windows are in and
the roof trusses also up. Well done to all those who have given up their
spare time and gliding time to work on this project. There is still a long
way to go with this project so if you can help in any way please don't be
backwards in coming forwards.
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Sunday 25th: Light winds and overcast for most of the
day. When the sun did finally come out mid to late afternoon the thermals
were popping and allowed some people to soar as far as the Spey valley.
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Saturday 24th: Rather overcast with little soaring. A
good day for those who needed circuits training.
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Sunday 18th: Unfortunately there were no remnants of
the previous days wave. The wind was light westerly with occasional showers.
We did have lots of visitors who didn't seem to mind the weather.
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Saturday 17th: WAVE DAY OF THE DECADE - Saturday was
a little bit better than your average wave day. In fact, it was one of the
best days ever seen at Easterton. To give a quick summary, five people went
above 20,000 ft, two diamond height claims and numerous gliders stopped
around the 12,000 ft mark because of lack of oxygen. The wind was
southerly and strong (about 50kts at 2,000 ft) which made the aerotows a bit sporty as the tug pilot said! The wave was stable all day and
steadily improved until by the end of it there was a monster wave bar
directly overhead Easterton that was so solid looking you would have thought it was carved out of stone! Both Robert Tait and Mark Brown took a
climb near Lochindorb in a system that was obviously going to 30,000 ft
plus. Robert reported climbing from 5,500 ft at an average of 7 knots all the way to FL 245 (24,500 ft) and was still climbing at 6 knots at
that height. Mark broke off at 24,000 ft to guarantee his diamond height.
Later on, Rick went to 23,000 ft and was climbing at 10 knots plus at that height but again broke off to guarantee his diamond height. David Chalmers
went to 20,000 ft but did not have a barograph so will have to do it again.
Geddes Chalmers and John Caithness went to 21,500 ft in the Acro.
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Inter Club League at Feshie, 10th to 12th: Some local
scratching on Saturday but no cross country and a no contest day. Sunday was
very similar and also a no contest day. Monday saw Fulmar win the day and
the trophy for the year with 2 entrants doing some cross country kilometers
and landing safely in fields. The lead taken by Fulmar had proved
unsurmountable. Congratulations to Fulmar on retaining the trophy at
Easterton for another year.
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Sat 10th / Sun 11th: Information for Easterton is a
bit sketchy for this weekend, however it would appear it was rather overcast
with light winds a little soaring.
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Sunday 4th: Warm and sunny with a light SE wind gave
some very good thermal in the afternoon up to a 4,000 ft cloudbase. A small
crew and lots of visitors and most people got some soaring.
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Saturday 3rd: Very foggy, no flying. Jim Tait spent
the day cutting the grass to a bowling green finish in preparation for
Sunday's flying.
JULY 2002
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Sunday 28th: Normally what is posted here is news of
progress and achievement, both from individual members and from the club as
a whole. Today however was one of those days when hard lessons were learnt.
The day started well enough, there was a 20 knot SW wind, the ridge was
working and 3 gliders were able to soar in very strong lift in front of an
advancing weather front. As the front came through Easterton the cloudbase
dropped to around 200 ft, the wind swung around to the north and there was
very heavy rain. The 3 gliders that were airborne had to land in a field
about 2 miles away in the Rothes Glen. Unfortunately the HGC K.21 was
damaged in the field landing, luckily there were no injuries to the 2 crew.
The K.21 is now away for repairs.
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Saturday 27th: The day started off dull and boring
although hot. It then turned into one of the best wave days we have seen for
ages. We eventually had most of the fleet up with two gliders getting over
12000 ft. Even the T21 got up to 7000' (Brrr) and flying continued until
nearly 9pm.
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Sunday 21st: Initially cloudy but soarable, lots of
people did lots of flying. Well done to Tony Butler who completed his field
landing checks and now has a Bronze C with cross country endorsement. The
T21 from Angus GC arrived for a short but very welcome visit. It was very
popular, especially later on when the sun came out and warmed things up. It
launched on the winch and aerotow and did quite a bit of soaring.
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Saturday 20th: Pouring with rain, no flying.
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Sunday 14th: Light westerly winds and rather overcast
in the morning. However the sun did break through in the afternoon giving
some good thermal although the cloudbase was only a little over 3,000 ft.
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Saturday 13th: It was sunny and warm but despite a
promising start it never really developed until late on. However, a great
deal of people turned up and we were kept extremely busy especially in the
two-seaters. There was local soaring on and off all day. We also saw the
welcome return of the tug last Wednesday and as ever, it was kept
busy. Peter Goodfellow converted to the K18 and promptly completed his
first half hour in it. Late on in the afternoon the sea breeze retreated and
we had some spectacular soaring with 8 knots to 6000' as late as 8pm.
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Sunday 7th: Some soaring in thermal but frequent
showers eventually put an early end to the days flying.
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Saturday 6th: The weather was dull and overcast but
one person who didn't mind was Peter Goodfellow who went solo, our
congratulations to him.
JUNE 2002
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Alasdair Raffan: It is with great sadness that we
have to report the death of Alasdair Raffan in a motorbike accident that occurred
on the 25th June. Alasdair was a member of the club from its earliest days.
He went solo very close to his 16th birthday and contributed much in the
clubs formative years. On leaving school he joined the RAF and was well known
in the RAFGSA. He was never posted in this area in his time in the RAF but
made many visits back to the club whenever he was in the area visiting
family. He will be a great loss to gliding and to all those who knew him.
Our condolences to Denis and the rest of the family.
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Wednesday Evening Flying: We have flown and soared
most Wednesday evenings this month. Most of the soaring has been on the
ridge with some weak wave. We have been landing as late as 10pm and still
with plenty of light for putting the gliders in the hangar. We will only be
able to operate on Wednesday evenings for another 6 to 8 weeks so come out
and make the best of the Wednesday evenings we have left.
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Sunday 30th: Rain all day.
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Saturday 29th: Rain in the morning which cleared to
give thermal and wave in the afternoon. Exact details of the days flying are
not known at the time of writing but if anyone who was there would like to
pass on the details please do so to the webmaster.
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Sunday 23rd: Some soaring again between the showers.
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MEMBERSHIP INCREASES: Our CFI, Robert Tait, and his
wife Teresa, have been working tirelessly to increase the membership of the
club. Congratulations from the whole club to the Tait family on the
birth of a son on Saturday 22nd.
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Saturday 22nd: Quite a few members at RAF Kinloss
Families Day helping out Fulmar GC or just enjoying the Red Arrows and the
rest of the fast jets display. For those that went gliding there was rain in
the morning but some soaring in the afternoon between the showers and Cu
Nims.
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Saturday 15th & Sunday 16th: Lots of soaring,
mostly in thermal. On Saturday Tony Butler managed to get a silver height
claim by the skin of his teeth.
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Sunday 9th: No flying due to poor weather, lots of
odd jobs done by the members that turned up anyway.
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Saturday 8th: Weather dull with SE winds. some flying
but no soaring.
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Monday 3rd (Open Day): Grey skies in the
morning turned to rain just before 11am when we were due to open our doors.
The rain finally stopped at around 1.30pm and the flying finally got started
with a fine aerobatics display by Terry Slater in the K.21. The afternoon
became quite bright with sunny spells and a reasonable number of visitors
turned up. 32 visitors were flown in gliders or motor gliders and flying was
extended more than an hour beyond our scheduled closing time to make up for
the late start due to the weather. Our visitors enjoyed another aerobatic
display by Terry in the late afternoon. Organizing and running the open day
was a huge amount of work, many thanks to everyone who helped.
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Sunday 2nd: Much of the morning was spent preparing
the airfield for the open day on Monday. In the afternoon a number of
gliders were launched into wave with the tug. Terry Slater had the best of
it climbing to 12,500' and going to Grantown and back.
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Saturday 1st: A few people soared the Dallas ridge in
southerly winds. Anne's LS7 went to the Cooper Park in Elgin as part of a
display for the Queen's Golden Jubilee celebrations, good publicity for the
open day on Monday.
May 2002
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Wednesday 29th: Evening flying, 3 visitors,
ridge/wave working up to 2,300 ft, last flight landed at 10pm after 45 mins
on the ridge.
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Sunday 26th: Fairly strong south easterly winds. The
tug was busy doing aerotows after having its carburetor replaced.
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Saturday 25th: Very showery and windy with only two
winch launches for the Acro which needed test flown after having its ASI
replaced.
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In The News: The local papers have been reporting on
Robert's 500k diamond distance flight. See the articles in the Press
& Journal and the Northern
Scott.
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Monday 20th to Wednesday 22nd: Phil's school
group from Elgin Academy flew every day with wall to wall thermal on
Tuesday.
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Sunday 19th: Soarable again in southerly winds with a
5 meters/sec climb in wave reported, topping out at 6,100 ft. Rain stopped
play again mid afternoon.
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Saturday 18th: Soarable in southerly winds with
climbs up to 7,000 ft. Rain stopped play mid afternoon.
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Sunday 12th: A lot of people declared tasks based on
the forecast for Sunday and what a day it turned into. David declared a
300K: Easterton to Dalwhinnie to Rhynie to Feshie and back. He had a damn
good go at it aswell completing all the turn points and after heading some
of the way home elected to land back at Feshie to avoid a late retrieve.
Some 260Km covered though so well done David. Angus took the Dart up to
Feshie and I think was hoping to fly back but conditions deteriorated in the
afternoon with spreadout and light rain. Phil and Robert declared a 500K:
Easterton to Callander to Dufftown to Pitlochry and back. They both Launched
early at 10am and already the thermals were working well. There was also
noticeably less wind than on Saturday. Phil got as far as the Feshie area
before getting stuck trying to cross the high ground. He returned to
Easterton to complete 168Km. Robert Tait completed the 500K he
declared TO BECOME THE FIRST PILOT TO GET A 500K DIAMOND DISTANCE CLAIM ON A
FLIGHT FROM EASTERTON. WELL DONE ROBERT, A FANTASTIC ACHIEVEMENT. Read
here a full account in his own words of his historic 500k
flight.
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Saturday 11th: The day looked fantastic but the
thermals were quite rough and broken low down, in the afternoon the
cloudbase went up to 5,000 ft. Lots of people did a lot of soaring but
mostly locally. Phil and Andy earned monkey points by leaving the tail pin
for the Jantar on the ground at Aboyne. Phil then crowned it by attempting
to soar the Junior to Aboyne to pick it up. After getting as far as Rhynie a
couple of times he ended up landing out at Dufftown! ....and still had to
drive to Aboyne to get the pin. Tony has pictures of the Junior from
overhead in the Bocian to prove it! The Bocian did find a little bit of wave
on the way back from Dufftown.
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Inter Club League: First meeting of the year from the
4th to 6th at Aboyne. Read Robert's report.
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Monday 6th: Blue skies and largely unsoarable due to
the inversion but hot and pleasant. The strip was cut.
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Weekend 4th/5th: Saturday was very soarable
with 3 people from the whisky festival turning up. Angie was busy in
the motorglider testing Tony's field landing skills. Terry was busy checking
out Tim Griffiths on the tug. Well done Tim, we now have another tuggie. I
also hear rumour that an Aboyne tuggie is coming across at weekends to do
some aswell. He has also been cleared. This should give us full tug coverage
every weekend. Many thanks to Terry for getting those people cleared. Sunday, the Whisky festival journalists turned
up and enjoyed their flights. It was soarable in the morning until the sea
breeze killed all the lift. It was however a lovely sunny hot day.
April 2002
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Sunday 28th: No flying due to rain. Lots of people
getting on with jobs like painting the steelwork in the new hangar though.
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Saturday 27th: Some decent flying with thermal up to
4,000 ft cloudbase. Well done to Chris Gill who re-soloed after a long
period away from gliding. Showers curtailed the day though.
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Sunday 20th: No flying due to strong winds.
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Saturday 20th: Some reasonable flying with a couple
of people up at 7,500 ft in wave.
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Sunday 14th: Rain all day but the time wasn't wasted
with work progressing on the current round of C of As.
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Saturday 13th: Light north easterly wind at Easterton
with the upper wind a light south westerly. Cloudbase at Easterton never
much exceeded 3000 ft and yet up at Feshie it was 6000 ft. Stuart Naylor
flew to Feshie to retrieve the "bomb" (a trophy that can be taken
away by any visiting glider pilot who has flown to the club holding the
trophy at the time). With the "bomb" safely stowed on board Stuart
took a launch in the LS7 and soared home. Phil had a gallant attempt at 300k
in Jantar 767 and after turning Dalwhinnie and Dufftown landed out near
Craigellachie. Martin also went for a bit of a jolly and landed out near
Knockando in Astir 770.
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Sunday 7th: Another blue day but pretty flat with 40
launches.
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Saturday 6th: Blue thermal day with lots of soaring.
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Friday 5th: Southerly winds with thermal and wave.
Those that managed to launch in the morning were able to stay away as
the crosswind increased and prevented launching again until about 4 pm. Phil
managed to turn Pitlochry before landing out the ASH with Colin Conti near
Kingussie. Ian Thomson and Robert took R50 to the Dee valley and climbed to
11,500 ft. Take offs were quite interesting late afternoon and those brave
souls who managed to had some really good soaring. Stuart Naylor got
to 16,700 ft in LS7 753 to claim his gold height and complete his Gold C.
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Thursday 4th: Southerly winds again. There was
eventually some flying late in the afternoon which stopped due to poor and
decreasing visibility.
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Wednesday 3rd: Strong southerly winds prevented any
flying this day.
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Tuesday 2nd: Southerly winds and
excellent wave going in excess of 13,000 ft. Robert and Tony completed 300K
in the ASH in under 3 hours and take off until 4.45 pm. Many others also had
good soaring in wave and thermal.
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Monday 1st: Dull with patches of rain
that eventually stopped flying. There was however some soaring.
March 2002
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Saturday 2nd: No flying due to poor weather.
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Sunday 3rd: The journalists who were visiting in
connection with the Speyside Whisky Festival all managed to get good flights
before the weather turned for the worse so at least we have something to be
thankful for.
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Saturday 9th: This turned out to be quite a good day
with quite strong thermals going up to nearly 3500' later in the day.
Miraculously, considering the deluge we had the night before, we managed
quite a bit of tugging and there was a considerable amount of soaring done
in thermal and ridge between showers.
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Sunday 10th: Today was a total write off for
flying with blizzards and howling southerlies. Luckily all the flying for
the instructors refresher course was completed yesterday so today's weather
was fine for the classroom stuff.
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The Annual General Meeting was held on Sunday the
10th, followed by the prize giving and
annual dinner.
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Friday 15th: The local paper The Northern Scot
carries an article about the club's connection
with the Speyside Whisky Festival in May.
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Saturday 16th: Horrible with strong south easterlies
and only 4 flights of which the longest was only 4 mins.
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Sunday 17th: This turned out to be a beautiful day.
44 launches of which 11 were aerotowing. Thermals were working up to 4000 ft
and some pilots even managed to venture to a few kilometers of cross
country. Mind you, Robert's crate of beer for the first 300K flown from
Easterton will have to stay in the fridge for a little while yet. The
weather was exceptionally warm making it a very pleasant day.
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Saturday 23rd: Strong south easterly wind and no
flying.
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Sunday 24th: Despite the doom and gloom rantings of
the weather men, this was quite a good day with several wave flights. Ian
Benzie got the best of it with 10,000ft in R67. The wind on the ground was
southerly but at 3,000ft it was almost westerly making the shifting
wave quite sporting.
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Thanks to Roy the battery mounting in the Junior is repaired
and the GPS mounting has been installed. The GPS was suitably tested when
Martin Knight took JMY to 5,000 ft in wave on Sunday.
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Thursday 28th: Fulmar got the Easter break off
to an early start with a couple of aerotows in the afternoon. The Acro had a
couple of hours soaring in the lovely Spring sunshine while Mark Brown
managed to climb to 12,000 ft in blue wave in R67.
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Friday 29th (Good Friday - and it sure was to some
people): A stonking thermal day. Mark Brown completed 180k of
a declared 300K in Astir 770. Roger Christie declared and completed
O/R to Feshie for 100K claim in Junior JMY. Roy Scothern attempted
50K to Feshie in the K.8 but landed out at Ferness.
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Saturday 30th: Most unusually we had moderate
westerly winds but with very poor visibility (around 5K for most of the
day). The ridge and thermal were working for most of the day. The poor
visibility meant that most people restricted themselves to local soaring
although the ASH did get up Speyside as far as Grantown. Congratulations to Colin
Conti who went solo today.
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Sunday 31st: Much better visibility today but the
occasional shower of rain. There was some soaring in thermal and on the
ridge despite mostly overcast conditions and the ASH did manage a little bit
of cross country.
February 2002
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Saturday 2nd: No flying due to strong winds. Sunday
3rd: A dismal day, what little flying there was ended before lunch when
low cloud and rain set in.
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Saturday 9th: Brisk westerly winds kept the ridge
going all day. There was a little thermal activity early in the afternoon
but only Steve Young got into wave getting to 10,000 ft at Ben Rinnes in
488.
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Sunday 10th: The ridge was working well again with
lots of people getting some soaring. Nobody managed to into the wave and
rain forced an early finish. Still, over 22 hours were flown this weekend so
that's bound to put a smile on the treasurer's face.
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Saturday 16th: Ridge and wave working again. David
Chalmers managed to combine the two with a wave flight topping out at 13,000
ft for his gold height. Fortunately the strip was dry enough for Rick Jones
to do some much needed aerotowing in the afternoon and get more gliders into
the wave.
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Sunday 17th: Ridge and wave again I believe, if you
have any details of this day then please email them to tech@highglide.co.uk
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Saturday 23rd: Snow showers, heavy at times, no
flying as you might expect.
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Sunday 24th: Dry and sunny but cold with little or no
wind, a couple of inches of snow lying on the airfield. No flying reported
for this day.
January 2002
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The first days flying of 2002 was on Wednesday 2nd: What
an excellent start to the year with gliders being launched straight into 8
knots lift in a light southerly wind. The wave however topped out at around
6,800 ft but the views were reported as fantastic with almost unlimited
visibility.
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The wave was working again on Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th
with Roy Scothern getting his silver height claim going to 5,800 ft on the
Saturday with 2 barographs having missed out on Wednesday by going to 6,800
ft without a barograph at all.
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Saturday12th: Moderate southerly winds made launching
and landings interesting. It was worth it though for those that managed to
get into wave from the winch in the afternoon. The Junior managed to get to
4,000 ft but the 60kt wind at that level made higher climb difficult. Sunday
13th: Another soaring day with the ridge working well in fresh south
westerly winds
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Saturday 19th: Lots of ridge soaring and 2 gliders
going over 10,000 ft in wave. Steve Young in his Ventus (488) and Stuart
Naylor in the LS7 (753). Sunday 20th: A wet and windy start to the
day but those who stayed go some soaring in the afternoon.
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Saturday 26th: No flying due to bad weather. Sunday
27th: Another good day with ridge lift working up to around 2,000 ft.
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