Sunday 6th of April dawned bright and sunny without a cloud in the sky. I was instructing today and had agreed to tow for Jenny for the Monday and Tuesday. So packing was undertaken for the three days with the added bonus that the clocks were "falling back" an hour. I arrived at the airfield at 9.20 and met my fellow soaring protagonists for the day, Nigel Holmes was accompanied by his partner Pat to continue with his training after being close to solo when he last visited in December. Ewan ? a visitor from the home country (Dunstable club) was here to fly for a few days and had an eye on our LS7. Charlie Szpitalak arrived to fly the etug and quickly got the towplane readied for the day. Geoff Neeley came for a second day but this time to get HDB into the air having towed the previous day. Jim Hackett arrived last and flew his very smart looking ASH26 for an hour or two.
Nigel and I took to the air first in the Puchatek and just hung on at first as the thermals developed some strength. After three quarters of an hour we got low by the airfield and Nigel caught hold of a strong core just before we were committed to joining the circuit. Jim Hackett, self launching in his ASH26, joined us as we climbed to cloudbase. Where we left him as we set off towards Gunnedah for a cruise under the good looking clouds that were developing. Ewan, meanwhile, had hopped into the LS7 and cruised off for a couple of hours to return with a wide grin on his face. Geoff reported having had a good run out to Coonabarabran and Premer before the iron thermal had to be used to bridge an energy gap on the way home.
Pat's return flight from Tamworth to the big smoke was due to depart at 5pm so we were able to fit in another circuit for Nigel before he drove to the airport. We tucked the Puchatek away in the hangar and I was lured by the LS7 parked by the side of the runway into thinking of a spot of soaring. Isn't instructing fun. With the help of Ewan we got it down to the launch point and I took off at 3pm. Charlie dropped me in 4kts overhead Geoff's castle and I climbed to starting height and headed out towards the Kelvin range where a large cloud threatened to lift me skyward at a considerable rate. I arrived underneath it at 2.5k and it's promise was realised, probably just as well, since I had no way of getting back to the club from that height if it failed.
At this stage cloudstreets ran from Barraba towards Coolah with overdevelopment evident towards the North with showers developing. I ran North first, towards the showers and enjoyed the visual display. Wherever the suns rays shone on the showers rainbows were in evidence. Long rainbows, short ones, double one's, sadly my camera had stayed in the car and the visual feast was to be unrecorded. After a run back down the cloudstreet towards Mullaley I returned towards Boggabri. It was time to run back into wind for the return to Keepit (the cloudstreets were crosswind). A large shower was overhead the Kelvin range with a smaller one over the Carrols. As I passed through the gap trying to avoid the rain I watched the swirl of the rain falling and was lucky to catch a good thermal back to cloudbase. During the climb I was able to take in the shear beauty all around me as I circled up. The sun by now was low in the sky and it shone brightly through the veil of the shower over the Kelvin illuminating the tendrils falling earthwards. It also shone up from the veil onto the cloudbase and picked out the texture of the cloud. The shadows from the clouds over Keepit extended for many miles but Tamworth was in a pool of sunlight and it shone brightly in the distance. Through a gap in the clouds to the Northwest blue sky could be seen with sunlight playing on the cloud tops towards the coast. Lift beckoned and with daylight permitting I ran another street to Middlebrook's strip skirting the Tamworth airspace and rain showers before blasting for home at 120kts.
Thank you for driving from Walcha Charlie, for so few tows. I'm sure that all those who flew today appreciated your contribution that made our enjoyable soaring day possible.
John
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