Sunday had that perfect cold night + sunny day, fair weather cumulus look and on arriving for duty I noticed that the sheets had more take off times than landings by about two to one - unfortunately this turned out to be slightly illusionary. Winching (on my own for the first time) became a challenge as the wind suddenly veered from max 8 kts SE to 10 kts northerly with some fun variations in between. A near miss with a jogger with his dachshund on the cross runway as I retrieved cables, reminded all of us that stray public are not wise to the dangers of gliders and cables in particular. This prompted Tony Parker to recollect his experience of a cable launch of a sheep to 100 feet at a more rural airfield... in that case the incident ended relatively happily - with the sheep in the freezer.

The anarchic wind change forced an early end to launch proceedings, it also presented some challenges to pilots who missed seeing the windsock and found themselves over shooting somewhat. Geoff Dixon was wise enough to land in the opposite direction to that he had launched into 3 hours earlier. As the day closed the CFI was off with his trailer to pick up his (syndicate partner's land out) glider from ... some manor house? no, the one with the airfield this time.

We also had the first recorded glider flight by a small teddy bear. Hopefully we will be seeing this photo on this page - after the tiny girl, whose bear it was, shows her pictures to the rest of her competing school friends who have only managed swings, tree houses and trampolines for their unusual bear locations. it was a good investment of time since there's a good chance that dad will now become a member too.
Patrick.