Graham Hodgson wrote:

What aircraft did you do your silver distance qualifying
50k flight in?



Ahem

Mine was in a Standard Cirrus. Took along my just arrived, second hand LX20 Data
logger (I know - glass and a logger) in the side pouch of the glider. I had
worked out how to declare a flight but nothing more in the couple of hours I had
had it.

You can see the log (record of my sins) here
http://www.whisperingwings.org.za/logs/34RF6VQ1.igc

I started late, with inadequate weather briefing. Overconfident after a nice
100Km+ flight the previous weekend. Failed to consider that on that occasion the
entire sky was going up, whereas on this day it was already getting patchy and
late.

This time I ambled inefficiently over to the neighbouring town and rather
embarassingly fell down. By then the sun was low, and I had determinedly flown
into a big patch of sink over the target airfield. I then had difficulty getting
high again, and lost confidence. It was only my fifth flight in the Cirrus and I
elected to land at their airfield rather than scratch home. In retrospect, the
return flight should have been no problem, but better safe than sorry.

The only redeeming factor was that the LX20 had recorded the flight, with my
experimental declaration. Total distance was 51Km so I claimed the silver distance.