Category: Flying Reports

The forecast for Wednesday 19th January was not very inspiring but the next day promised a sunny day with a northerly wind.  Perfect direction but not enough of it to assure that the ridge would be working.  Naturally, we moved Wednesday to Thursday.  First half dozen flights explored the ridge finding not much more than scraps of zero and then Ken P remained airborne and was observed thermalling.

As the afternoon progressed cloud streets appeared.  SUGC member Matt L discovered the delights of thermalling (much to the frustration of Nicolay U whose 3 flights were not much more than circuits).  Last 2 flights of the day (James H in a Puchacz and Chris H with me in the other) had the best of streets.  Chris climbed in modest lift to 1,900′ by which time we were south of the woods to the south.  He turned for home under the street and by the time we reached the high key area he was at 2,500′ – no turning just flying in a straight line.  James H reported climbing to 2,700′.  Highest launch I heard of was in the K13 to 1,800′

 

With a 3 week gap since we last flew fingers were crossed for the first Wednesday of 2022.  Sun was forecast and nothing too challenging with the wind, but would the field still be too soggy?  Tuesday was dry and Wednesday cold so it was reasonably firm underfoot and we were able to fly – phew!  Mainly westerly with not enough north in the wind for the ridge to work.  Well, that was the theory but there were patches of zero, plus a bit, which meant about half the launches resulted in double digit flight times.  A dozen members flew and and we did 19 launches.  As the day warmed (a little) it did get softer underfoot, especially the launch point closest to the launch point wagon

Now you may think that the 29th was a Thursday but as far as the mid-week flyers are concerned we can move Wednesday if it suits us.  With thunderstorms forecast for “real” Wednesday the option was to slide Wednesday to Thursday.  Didn’t look too promising with a cross-wind gusting 30mph.  The forecast then relented a bit, still a cross-wind (WSW) but gusts not so high.  Even with the field set-up it was not obvious whether we would fly or put the toys away.  Check flight determined it was “lively” but OK with extra height for turning finals and plenty of speed.  The cloud streets looked splendid.  With a limited number of stalwarts we just flew a Puchacz and the Vega (decidedly not a K8 day).  The Duo Discuss “boys” rigged and Ken R and Bill C flew Devizes/Wantage before handing over to Ken P who disappeared off for an hour and a half with Gillian B.  There was only one person on the list looking for someone in the backseat and the Puchacz was busy and the Vega was just sitting there, so, an opportunity not to be missed.  Initial climb was hard work, being tossed around making slow progress vertically and drifting horizontally.  Once past 2,000 ‘ lift easy to find and the cloud streets did deliver.  Managed to push up wind and view the crop circle – been a long time since I’ve seen one of those.

An hour solo – a rare treat.  Lunch (yes a stop for lunch) and then an hour with Geoff G in the Puchacz.

By 15:00 everybody had flown and it took a bit of persuasion to get James W to take the lonely looking Vega and Nigel B to take the remaining cable with the Puchacz.  We got the K13 out for the evening crew who (I see from the log) flew from 18:17 to the last landing a few minutes before sunset.

Just went to show sometimes it’s worth giving it a go despite the weather forecast.

After a year of very limited opportunities to fly (thanks to COVID) we may not be quite back to “normal” but we are back open, active and able to enjoy the summer weather.  Well, that’s the theory.  So far we have had 4 weekends in July and there was only flying on one of those weekends (see previous blog entry) thanks to the “summer” weather.

It will come as no surprised to the thwarted weekend pilots that flying went on as normal on Wednesdays clocking up lots of flights.  In fact, each Wednesday before and after the flying weekend clocked up more launches that the total over the weekend.  There were 40 launches in total across the weekend of 17th and 18th.  The Wednesday before 54 and Wednesday after 49.

Fingers crossed for more collaborative weather in August.