Monday 15 January 2024
At 19:30 last night, I was sitting at home and received a call asking if I might be available to act as Duty Full Cat today, as the ridge might be working well enough to support a 5 hour silver badge duration attempt in the ASK 18 (R48) for Arthur Barfield.
The forecast showed a 5 hour window from 09:30 to 14:30-ish. In reality, the wind picked up almost on cue. A small team set up the airfield and launched Arthur at 09:47 - he managed to climb to 1,700 feet and stayed there for 30 minutes. The wind then veered by 30 degrees and dropped a couple of knots. Arthur managed to hang on using both the main ridge and the North ridge, and landed after 5 hours 2 minutes. Well done, Arthur - on a cold and not straightforward day.
In addition, Josh joined him for about 1 hr 20 mins in the Discus CS (506) and landed when both batteries failed.
Thanks also to Al, who has been an unsung hero over the past few weeks, sorting out various FLARM issues across the fleet and who today updated the FLARM on the Falke motor glider (SF), which is an unenviable task due to the location of the unit.
