Sunday was a pretty good day for gliding, at least by April standards. Lots of people had multi-hour flights.
I was in one of our pair of SZD Junior gliders. The Junior is a great glider but is not very efficient at high speed. You typically need high speed when flying into wind — and for that reason it’s not normally recommended to fly too far downwind of the airfield in a Junior.
On Sunday, the wind, unusually was from the east. For a variety of reasons I didn’t want to go too far from the airfield (most importantly, I hadn’t arranged for someone to come and pick me up if I accidentally landed out!)
So, I went to the golf club! Specifically, Cambridge Country Club which is just beyond the village of Bourn.
It looks pretty fancy when you drive past it but even more fancy from the air.
In fact, I ended up commuting backwards and forwards between the gliding club and the country club about six times, grabbing a new thermal each time and riding it from the country club to the gliding club.
I don’t know why the country club was kicking off useful thermals. Maybe it was golfers waving clubs in the air; maybe it hot air from the gym, or perhaps it was warm air from the restaurant (looks yummy).
