last wednesday

A lovely afternoon of sun, floaters and spring thermals

blue sky and cumulus

4 metres of floaty loveliness

high tech meets old school

 off she goes

it could be a summer's day

cruising over

Les loves his Discus

"I'll be working from home today"

 ?

 good to see an Algebra in action

can you feel the power of the dark side?

Eric test flies his new electric model in readiness for this year's Ashdown cross country comp.

 hmm, looks like it could do with an extra wing bolt

 good climb rate...not so impressed with the glide

searching for that elusive winter thermal

 specking it out

my mistake, it's just stuck to the ceiling

 coming in for the landing bonus

nope, we'll go for a hand catch instead

Simon checks it over and reckons that fly bar dihedral is a good thing

you'll have someone's eye out with that

 tracking sorted, back off into the grey

cold, dark maiden

Friday afternoon is dark and full of winter chill, but Alan cheers us all up with a maiden of his Pat Teakle Pik 20. It's not often a man with a fleet of Alan's extent needs a new model. But having been offered the '20 at a price he couldn't refuse and with the onset of miserable weather, it wasn't long before he had this scalie ready to go.

low light and low lift...perfect maiden conditions!

test pilot is focused on the job

shove this up its pipe!

structural concerns not an issue

 post maiden elation

crashes and other nonsense

smooth long man

 the slog begins

strange aeronautics at work

 hi vi Erwin strafing the dug out

 duck and cover Deryck

 checking over the lip

 tickling the flaps

big man on Long Man 

slope terrorist 

slope ecstasy 

 slope tool

 whoosh!

doubleplus whoosh!

 over the green

improv canopy from sandwich wrappers, wank rag and tape

the ultimate pikey plane

(slope hunter photo)

 home time

misery week

Today's weather is brought to you by the good lord Shite. Let's remember some better times with an extended edit of Gary's Minimoa maidened on a superb day a couple of years back.

Scratchy Beachy

A Saturday trip to the coast is planned based on the promise of east to south easterly winds and bright sunshine....we narrowly miss both!

cold start to the day

Beachy's air ramp

Deryck cruising with the Toplight. The Countryman stayed grounded

For the best part of the day the wind has a smidge of north in it so all we can do is cruise the lip of Whitbread Bowl. We then have to sit it out for an hour or so while it backs proper north east.

Paul finds this antique and has his longest flight

of the day employing the 'ring pull frisbee' trick

sea thermal marked by its dark base

Deryck chucks off to join the circling gulls

However, by three o'clock the forecast easterlies arrive straight into the bowl and we have an hour of smooth wide spread lift as the sun creeps down low.

summer flights

lost and found

A watch has been found on the hill at Thurnham, please post in the comments with details if it belongs to you.

start as we mean to go on