Another interesting weekend of weather, with a slightly patchy easterly wave on Saturday. The wind turned quite northerly towards 5000', so getting up to 6500' was possible but only in parts. A good way to shake off the cobwebs for Roger in the Libelle, and Bill in his Lak while I took some friends from work up for a flight in PK. Nothing like being thrown around in wave for your first flight ever! Luckily these two were more than up for it, and had a blast.
Don't forget the Mid Winter Awards Dinner coming up Saturday 18th August (next weekend!).
There's been a lot of news on the international site http://soaringcafe.com/ about the running World Gliding Champs in Uvalde in the US. One piece of news that caught my eye (apart from the 11,000 foot thermals) was about the InReach GPS Satelite Tracker. It's very similar to a SPOT device, where it reports your position to the internet, live while flying. The main differences are:
- Can send/receive text messages through satelites (great if you land out somewhere remote)
- Sends your height, and ground speed, as well as location.
- Can report your position every 2 minutes, instead of every 10 like the SPOT. For emergency rescue, you could travel a lot of ground in 10 minutes.
- It does cost more than a SPOT however, at $250USD for the device, plus $25USD/month for unlimited tracking and 40 text messages.
If we are able to hook this up to the same maps page the SPOT devices use, it could be a good alternative. Here are more details from soaring cafe.
