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Sutton Bank October 2013 part two

Just as the locals predicted Thursday was indeed a good ridge day at SB.

The day started off bright and mild but with not quite enough wind to make the ridge work the first flights by the locals were not that long.

Not to be put off Chris and I took the Janus for a flight and after thermalling down from our 2,000ft aerotow began working the ridge, after an hour we landed to give Carol and Rod a go.

As Carol and Rod were flying I noticed that the SB motor-glider was ridge soaring as well and was making good use of the lift.

It soon became clear that not only was the motor-glider ridge soaring but that also it was doing so with the engine switched off! After half an hour’s ridge soaring they gave up and came into land probably due to the fact that with the engine turned off it was not costing anything and the treasurer had noticed!

After an hour or so Carol and Rod landed and after a brief delay for lunch Carol and I took it up for another hour, Chris taking his LS7 ridge soaring for almost an hour as well.

So out of the 7 days we were there we had one day of wave and one day of ridge/thermal clocking up about 4 hours airtime each but as usual the flying, banter and the friendly locals made it all worth while…….roll on next year 🙂

Phil

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Sutton Bank October 2013

After a few days where we could not fly due to rain or low cloud on Tuesday afternoon we were finally rewarded with some great wave flights.

Chris managed 2 hrs 1 minute in the LS7 whilst Carol and I had two flights, one which had to be cut short to 29 minutes as the wave slot closed beneath us forcing us to descend quickly through a small hole.
Our second flight lasted over 1 1/2 hrs and enabled me to take some photos and to shoot some video.

The office staff at SB thought the police had really cordoned off his camper van but in fact it was only Chris mucking around again!

I was only there only to act as photographer honest officer!

Tomorrow looks like being a great ridge day with the possibility of wave……..more tomorrow.

Phil

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Saturday 12th October 2013

Here’s what you missed. The sky cleared by 10am as predicted. Sadly too few turned up to get out more than the K13 until after 3pm, when the Vega came for a couple of circuits. As RASP had predicted, the cloud base under good looking streets took us to almost 3000 feet.

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Thursday 10th October

With a ridge day forecast we got going a little earlier than normal for midweek flying. The forecast held good for a strong northerly blow, improving as the day progressed. The check flight proved the ridge to be working stupendously well with sustained lift at 1700ft all the way from the Gibbet to the western ridge. Briefings were duly issued for ridge rules, high final turns and blistering approaches and the fun began.

(Pictures of empty launch points have been refreshingly frequent of late, so I will spare your bandwidth. Suffice it to say that Ka13, Puchacz, Vega, Swales, ASW15, Cirrus and Duo Discuss were at one point simultaneously absent.)

An encouraging number of ab-initios appeared on the scene so with three hours in the back seat I had the privilege of seeing the day unfold from the air. It started with a clear blue sky and some of the easiest ridge soaring I have ever experienced, but the unstable Arctic air soon filled the sky with ragged cu. We began to experience the predictable sink pockets and some strong thermals to 3000ft. Activity then spread away from the ridge and the better performance a/c were seen off in the distance, some staying airborne for close to three hours with me having to ration training flights to 30 minutes. By mid afternoon the vault had filled with alternate bands of convective spread-out interspersed with bands of bright sunlight – Wavy, where were you? This combination of ridge lift, convection and wave interaction prevailed for an hour or so, bringing ridge soaring to a halt for a while, but as the Sun lost its power the disruptive influences subsided. So those that stayed on to the bitter end were rewarded with some more extended ridge flights.

Note to self – ‘bring more soup’