At 10.30 I was sitting at the computer looking out of the south-facing window at an overcast sky (as forecast) thinking, “no hurry today”. Finished what I was doing, put a few tools in the car for an odd-jobs day at the club, drove round the corner where I got a view to the north… “Look at that sky!!!” Blue peppered with little cu. Turned back home, grabbed the parachute and chart and headed quickly to the club, met a few other members with similar stories, got rigged and flew. OK, so I messed up and got low with only just enough height to scrape back home, whereupon Peter took the glider and did it right. As did several other people, with several flights around the hour; Paul got the hour he needs towards his next endorsement. It wasn’t especially easy and at least one of our pilots was saved by a passing Duo (was that you Liz?) which had also got a bit low and was just getting away again, but it was vastly better than we expected, a real fillip in a gloomy spell of unseasonable wind and rain. Another case of “if the forecast is poor, go to the airfield and rig….”
Saturday 9th. Almost forgot.
I’ve had many request to post another landout sign…..
Also it was very picturesque.
Although I’d misjudged the grass, thinking it was grazing I found out two feet from landing it was silage/ set aside.
No harm done and we were very careful to drive around the endge of the field and to disturb the field as little as possilbe.
Saturday 9th June, Lasham Regionals
Well the Lasham comp is now over. Some of the pilots flew 2 of the 9 days while us mortals flew only 1 day, yesterday.
I got up early about 05:30, looked out of the window to see Wave clouds all over the place. Drat I thought, it was sure to muck up any thermal activity.
We set our sailplanes on the grid, got a task; (the A group) Lasham, Midhurst, Calne, Didcot and back to Lasham.
Midhurst wasn’t too bad but turning back was a hard long slog and getting back near Lasham at 1200 QFE made me magnetise towards the landing strip to the east of the field.
As it happened I scraped away and was joined by many other gliders having similar ‘niggles’.
I gathered up my thoughts and concentrated on getting towards Calne. First I got to Kingsclere Mast, found another weak thermal and got a little higher leaving the mast behind, punching forward I found another weak climb and punched forward leaving the Kingsclere mast behind. Groundhog Day came to mind but on the third attempt I got to Rivar where I had another low save.
A change of direction and tempo was called for so slowing a little I took a more conservative course and made my way towards Marlborough
I landed, headed towards the farm, made my apologies and was greeted by very friendly farm staff at the stables.
I got retrieved by my friend Steve and we were back at Lasham by 19:30.
A great day but many landouts.
Saturday 9th June
With the wet and blustery conditions of the last few days behind us Saturday was a refreshing change. We still had 15 to 20 knots of almost dead westerly flow to deal with but after placing a few limitations regarding levels of experience for solo and a briefing about flying too far downwind during the circuit etc we got off to a good start.
Initially cloudbase was around 2500ft but quickly rose to over 4500ft as the day progressed. Good climbs were reported and many extended flights were flown. Due to the cross wind launch heights were understandably reduced but if you were lucky to be launched within easy reach of a good area of lift then you could extend your flight quite easily, time it wrong and a quick circuit was the result.We even managed to deliver a 30min trial lesson!
As the day progressed the sky became filled with comp pilots from Lasham, no doubt grateful for our fleet of thermal markers. Jim McCormick and I in the Puchacz had 6 of them sharing one of our climbs!
All in all plenty of soaring flights were flown and those not quite solo were treated to cross wind landings.
Thanks to Steve Ottner and Richard Dann for helping me instruct when a developing cold threatened to curtail my flying.
Phil