A cold blustery morning on Wolstonbury Hill

Three of us myself, John and Robin decided to meet up at 10.00 on the top of the bowl. As Robin had intended to park at the bottom of the hill and walk to the top, I thought that I would do the same. Apparently, there are a number of routes to take and I selected the steep one, never again. By the time I reached the top John was already there assembling his newly acquired Phase 6. I had, as usual my trusty Wildthing. It was very blustery with a steady 20 mph wind when John launched his Phase 6 for its first check flight. It flew very well and was very responsive in the challenging conditions. John admitted that a small amount of adjustment would be required. His landing approach was great but unfortunately just before touch down the right hand tailplane struck one of the many lumps in the landing area and the impact caused the wing to pop off, shearing the wing attachment bolt and causing some minor damage to the tailplane assembly. Robin joined us with his home designed and built glider which is based on the Sherpa model, which performed well in the conditions. John left us at this point while Robin and I continued to fly. I tried a number of landing approaches with some success and my best controlled landing was only some 10 paces away. Robin’s aircraft flew really well but he needed to make some adjustments. Some time later whilst practicing landings he found his glider some way behind us, unable to tease the glider over the fence he made a good landing behind the wire. A few times this morning the sun did shine through and we had some blue sky above and also the Skylarks were singing. After about 2 hours Robin and I strolled back down using the easy route this time back to our cars.  A good session for some but not all.