Beer Head 30th June

Another day out for the low air time midweekers, sadly most of them couldn't make it with only Richard Darling answering the call, various excuses of got to work and bad toes (you know who you are ) will not be tolerated and the miscreants will be punished.

The day nearly fell by the wayside before it got started as I got a call off a couple of Avonites who said they couldn't make it, then having checked the forecast I saw why they had changed plans. At this point I got on the phone to Mr D to call it off.

Fortunately he was outside my house when he answered and the ensuing cup of tea and ponder resulted in us deciding to take a punt.

We blundered southwards through the gloom our excitement levels growing as the day got brighter the further south we went.

Got to the take off to find a lovely day unfolding before our very eyes, and a lovely flyable day to ourselves.

Mr Hickman you would have been proud as I made sure our low airtime pilot had a full site briefing before throwing him to the sky as my wind dummy.

After executing a near perfect launch in front of the passing walkers the cheeky bugger had the temerity to fly straight up and float around like he'd been doing it for years.

Realising my services were no longer needed I decided having nothing else to do I may as well have a fly. Lovely boat around for a hour or so , unfortunately the wind was a bit off so the full coastal run wasn't doable.

Landed when it picked up a bit and sat around to see if it would calm down. A local turned up and was told tales of our excellent day which now looked blown out, he took us to a locals site which turned out to be a comedy take off next to some ornamental gardens and behind the beach huts at Sidmouth.

This apparently is where the locals go when beer is blown out , sadly no photos as we were laughing into our ice cream too much. The local lad launched showing some great ground handling skills then proceeded to miss the fence by about 6 inches and the beach huts by a similar margin and land 30 feet down the beach.

Smothering our grins we helped him pack up and as is traditional ran down to the sea for a paddle.

Off home for a well deserved tea.

Thanks go to Richard for persuading me it was worth a punt and even offering to do the driving duties.

Paul M