Sunday Soaring what a great way to pass the day….
Jim M decided to do some aerobatics with Pete S before the TL’s started and I got a couple of goodish circuits in before being reminded to round out…. 🙂
While the Duo Discus went on its merry way
Sunday 14th August
Upon seeing that the Puchacz was staying up and even climbing on its first launch of the day Carol and I set ourselves Nympsfield-Newbury as our task. With the westerly breeze showing 20kts at height and with only a 2600ft cloudbase we set off on track. Lift was good in places but some clouds just were not playing ball and lured us into long glides in search of lift. We spent quite some time over Swindon just trying to stay airborne but as we were no longer within gliding range of Rivar pressed on.
It soon became clear that we would not reach Nympsfield so wimped out and landed at Aston Down instead.
Within an hour or so the sky improved and it looked like the cloudbase was rising significantly so after refueling with a nice cup of tea we took a launch to test it out. Straight off the wire we hit a stonking thermal which took us up to cloudbase at 4500ft over the airfield so we headed back to Rivar. Two or three thermals later we were crossing the clubhouse at 120kts so no need for the retreive crew…………..yahooo!Phil
Saturday 13 August
With 5 members (4 of whom were instructors) and a low cloud base it did not bode well. However, Tim (duty instructor) had a plan – drink tea. James Holland, and guest, appeared so we got the toys out (including Colin spotting a problem with the winch and the bus winch went into service). Tim took the Roundout bus to the launch point – time for tea (and Colin donned his overalls to work on the winch). First launch ran into cloud at 1250. A few launches later James resolo’d (after a 13 year gap). We had just about run out of folks wanting to fly when John T appeared so we carried on flying. When the Puchacz was heading for the hangar Adam Cumberlege appeared so it went back online. For those who don’t know Adam he was a member many moons ago before he moved from Vernham Dean to Auckland. He’s a member of the Auckland Gliding Club and these days flys an ASW-20. This was the first time he’d flown a Puchacz and put it through its paces – good to see him again.
Altough the longest flight of the day was only 11 minutes we had a worthwhile day (exceptionally good vis) and clocked up 24 launches.
Pile of plates (Wed 10th Aug)
It wasn’t a grest soaring day on Wednesday, with a rther stiff southwesterly breeze. But there was a nice collection of wave clouds, including this nice “pile of plates” (altocumulus lenticularis).