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19th May 2012

Saturday 19th

‘Vaguely Soarable’ is how Met God David Masson forecast the day, and indeed vaguely soarable is what it turned out to be. We did our first vague soaring on the first flight when the gloop cleared enough to fly at around 11am. We flew through the rest of the day and it was soarable for most of that time, with a mix of soaring flights, cable breaks, checks and investigation of glider behaviour near the stall. Lovely to see Mark Patterson firmly back and not far off resoloing; lovely also to see John Day back and determined to get himself back to solo. Meanwhile we flew two trial lessons – I hope they’ll both be back – and those in training/improvement got down to some hard work on training and improving. The only thing missing was the rest of you – we had only enough people to operate one glider at a time for most of the day. Don’t waste the facility you’ve paid for – get out and get flying! And the DI apologises for having to slope off a little early – even I was fooled by the weather into thinking we’d be packed up by 5.15 when we did the last flight!

15th May 2012

Sunday 13th (the other day)

So, everyone made a bee-line for Saturday. Some of us knew our glider would be occupied and went flying on the other day of the weekend (and not all that many of us). Well why would anyone pick Sunday when the Lasham weather guru said “nothing spectacular – rather lingering cumulus base 3000-3500ft” with 2 kt thermals? Well, the friend of Selvam’s who I took for a TL mid-afternoon seemed to think that joining a thermal shortly after launching that took us to 4,800 with the vario bouncing between 8 and 10 was spectacular – but then it’s easy to impress folks taking a TL isn’t it. In this case he’d been to L many years ago and didn’t quite make solo so he did have some experience to compare with.
OK I will admit earlier on it wasn’t so easy all day and not everyone managed to get away and some took more than 1 attempt. Even so 9 of the (modest) 19 launches had a decent length flight (between 1 and 3 hours). I don’t know where folks got to other than Pete (180k but then his Nimbus was back in its trailer by the time the best conditions arrived) – oh, and me. Between Colin and myself EEFy clocked up over 5 hours.

PS I’m not trying to take a pop at the Lasham forecasts – they are very good and I do appreciate being able to see them. It just goes to show that the weather does what it wants to do.

14th May 2012

Saturday 12th May 300km later

After waiting for some decent weather we were finally rewarded with light northerlies on Saturday. RASP looked good; the met gave a good report so Phil and I decided to pop around a 300km flight, each in our single seat gliders. We were (if time allowed) going to shove on an extra task if we could but the essence of the task was Birdlip, Rushden and back to Rivar.

We decided on as early a start as possible, that way we’d have the opportunity to add a further task on if we wanted.

Having got to the field and the dawn of crack we found James Hunneyman had beaten us to it!

We fettled, snapped wings on and generally got everything set and were ready to launch early.

A little later, having sent off the K13 we decided it was worth launching and took to the sky.

Leaving Rivar at around 2500 feet we tiptoed towards Gloucester each taking it in turns to both lead and follow. I was constantly frustrated with being out climbed in the thermals by the LS3 but it was pointed out a little later that both the glider climbs well and Phil scratches like a dog with Psoriasis.

The sky towards Birdlip cycled and not in a way you’d like, turning to a scraggy horribly and grey mass. I got low and ended up scratching for the little lift there was next to Kemble. Hearing people on the radio sounding grateful for a half knot climb I realized I wasn’t the only one low and about to land. At 830 feet above the ground I finally latched onto a weak but stable climb, which took me both back up into the air but more worryingly across a forest of trees. It’s strange how you focus when so close to a mixed deciduous forest with a small escape field at either end. Up I went with the thermal eventually building into something much better and having called to Phil to carry on track.

I sulked a little for letting myself get low and headed towards Birdlip some 17km ahead. Rounding the TP I refocused and headed onwards to Rushden and with a good pace started chomping away the km’s. After a while a familiar voice came over the radio asking how I was doing. I told Phil I had 85km to run to Rushden. To my amazement Phil said he had 110km to run! I wondered where he’d been and how on gods green earth had he sneaked behind me at Birdlip but it transpires he also got low getting the TP, of which the two Kens in the Duo Discus turned back from, Phil had lost a lot of time there.

I do like a little schadenfruede especially when I later learned that Phil was watching me above the forest and flew away as he didn’t want his day (and 300km) spoilt by watching me land in the trees.

The day and the air got better and better and once we’d turned Rushden it was a relatively smooth run back for the last 125km, well that was until Phil got to Didcot and thermalled around the chimneys but even so managed a very respectable final glide of 40km at 62 knots and the best climb at Didcot averaging 5.5 knots with the vario hitting over 10 knots in places.