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Portmoak

Loch Leven

The first 4 days at Portmoak have been quite good.
Portmoak

Thursday  and Friday were good ridge days and during these days clocked up around 5 hours on the ridge.

Running the ridge
Running the ridge

Portmoak

During Saturday  and Sunday the wind shifted  to the east and became mildly thermic. Flight times were lower but great fun.
Loch Leven

On tow
On tow
Loch Leven
Loch Leven

Chris and I latched onto a good thermal and climbed to Cloud base which was at 2500ft then ran a street all the way to the coast  at Kirkcaldy without turning. The final glide back was devoid of any lift but the Janus got us back with 900ft to spare.

The coast near Kirkcaldy
The coast near Kirkcaldy

Monday  and Tuesday have been wet but it looks like Wednesday afternoon onwards  will be good again.

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Shalbourne Gliding @ Sutton Bank

With spectacular scenery and great company we’ve settled into life at the Bank. Full breakfast, followed by tea and laughing then onto the serious stuff of morning briefing and  weather watching.

A great day yesterday, 2 gliders landing out (I managed to get back!) and some areas of strong sink on the east side of the approach.

Sutton Bank approach Rievaulx Abbey Puchacz in the clouds DSC_0415 Puchacz under the Janus wing 383 Rod and Graham Puchacz in the clag Puchacz Rod Graham and Phil

 

Great company, great flying and friendly local

 

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Sutton Bank day one

 

First day of flying at Sutton Bank today with many hours flown.

With cumulus in abundance and a 10kt  NNE wind we aerotowed  off 02. Cloud base was a reasonable 3500ft and there was good lift available

Rod gave Nigel  a site check in EUF and had just short of the hour. Chris encountered strong sink and had to take a relight after 15 mins , his second flight lasting well in excess of an hour.

Carol and I  had over two hours  and explored good lift over Thirsk and the surrounding areas.  Nigel then took the Vega for a couple of  flights very much enjoying his  first  aero tows in a single  seater.

A bit later in the afternoon Graham arrived and had a couple of  flights with Rod and was introduced to  aero towing and the delights of flying here at SB. During  the flight  Chris and I  flew alongside  them and took a few photos….. more later.

At the end of the day Rod found a nice spot to park the Puchacz!

20150502_061609

 

Seems this is the first glider to use the new hanger!

So a very good day at Sutton Bank and today  looks like more of the same.

Phil

 

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Sunday 28th in Norfolk

Holiday time and an opportunity to slope off and visit the local gliding club.  This time it was the Norfolk GC at the massive WW2 airfield at Tibbenham.  What luxury, the classic A set of hard core runways, several hangars and a substantial club house complete with mains supplies, briefing room, bar and bacon butties (other refreshments were available).
The practice is not to use the cross runway (the horizontal line of the A) because its condition is not too great (looked fine to the casual observer).  This meant we had a 90 degree cross wind and with the launch point at the runway intersection, the result was launches of only around 1,000.  Lots of runway behind the launch point meant it was very easy to land behind the launch point (in fact effort had to be made to get back to the launch point).  Launching was from the grass alongside the runway and landing on the hard runway.  Some folks landed into wind on the grass alongside the cross runway.  Interestingly (to me at least) only radio was used for launching.  The launch point vehicle had lights but apparently rarely used.

Launch point
A fairly quiet day so it wasn’t long before I was able to go for a site check with Andy the DI in their K21.  Prior to my flight only short circuits were being flown.  I found some weak lift and scratched away gaining a whole 50′ at one point but only managed 14 minutes.  The Vega that took the next launch and joined us and was less wimpy than I was about the drift and took the longest flight of the day (by a very large margin) of just over 1 hour.  Slightly higher launch of 1,100′ in the club’s Astir but only a couple of turns in zero within reach.  Then it was time to blag a ride in the privately owned T21.
 
Launch point seen from a T21 – end of the day with 2 gliders being towed to the hangar

At the end of the day almost all those who had been flying lent a hand to derig the K21 ready to be sent off for its ARC.

Many thanks to the members of Norfolk GC who made me most welcome and offered me the chance to sample the delights of facilities at Tibenham – next time hopefully there will be more in the way of thermal activity.  It’s not very often one gets the chance to move from a K21 to a T21.

The T21 is called “The Barge” by it’s owners so just in case it lands on one of the broads