Category: Flying Reports

I suppose one has to feel sorry for the folks burden by wok and unable to get out to play on such a day.  From 11:00 to 13:30 everything we threw at the sky soared away (well, with one exception).  Colin B took the LS3 to somewhere north of Bristol.  The Duo Discus (with Ken R and Bill C) only ventured off a modest distance as Bill had to head to work in the afternoon (the suggestion to “drop him off” was not thought to be prudent since he was working at Heathrow).
In the afternoon the blue hole settled in with great looking cu to the north, south, east and west.  The prospect of the good stuff from the north coming within reach kept tempting folks but only a few got lucky – Rob J in the Cirrus (on his free launch), Steve B in the ASW-15 and myself in the LS3.  Climbs to 4,800 were available and the visibility was exceptionally good.  25 hours flown off 37 launches.

Meanwhile, south of the border, Wednesday is a flying day – and a quite reasonable looking one at that.  I should maybe qualify that by saying we could see good looking cu the north, south, east and west and we started the day sitting in the middle of a blue hole.  Whilst rigging his Pilat Justin B asked me if I though a 2 hour flight would be possible and I encouragingly said “yes” but thought “hmm, depends”.
Shortly after midday Bill C failed to immediately return in the K8 so Chris K pulled his Cirrus online, shortly followed by me in the LS3.  The ability to scratch and determination to do so was needed but with those, climbs to 3,200′ were possible (Chris K claiming that particular prize).  Cloud base was very variable and was down 2,200′ at times and in places.  Justin didn’t manage his 2 hours but did do over an hour to go towards his cross country endorsement.  Having said a 2 hour was possible I felt obliged to stay airborne for at least that time and that proved to be the longest flight of the day.  In total just over 14 hours of flying was clocked up by “the Wednesday boys” (I’ll skip the aka).

Colin returned from the weather check reporting “lift everywhere” and having to side-slip along the downwind leg.  The advice to his syndicate partner – “it’s worth rigging”. LS3 rigged and the word from Colin in the back seat was “sorry, it’s as if there’s been a complete change of air”.  Alan P had been airborne for some time so something must be working.  Straight off the launch into a reasonable thermal which stopped dead at 2,000′ by the inversion.  No matter, plenty more where that came from, or so I thought.  Nothing found to impede my inevitable descent to Mother Earth.  Launch number 2 turned into an epic scratch – half an hour off only 2 thermals, each providing a gain in height of 500′, gives an idea of just how feeble the climb rate was.  All good character forming stuff I suppose.  Mine was the second longest flight of the day, beaten by Alan P with over an hour in his Skylark.  How he managed that length of time is a mystery (especially, it was suggested, given the soaring ability demonstrated on the previous couple of flying days – one wag observed that maybe he should stick to yellow aircraft and avoid blue) but impressive.
The day ended prematurely when the intermittent problem on with the winch was no longer intermittent and the starter motor gave up.

Lots of members turned out to play and 4 private gliders rigged.  Despite a 90 degree cross wind and the subsequent poor launches (1,200ish was what I was seeing from the back seat of a K13) thermals far from guaranteed, quite a few decent soaring flights were had.  At one point in the afternoon all 7 gliders were airborne and the launch point empty.  Chris K set the time to beat flying his Cirus for 50 minutes, which Colin B bettered by 8 minutes flying his LS3-17 but Rob J, in his Cirus, clocked up 1:13.  Mind, it wasn’t easy, Colin had to take 3 launches to get one decent length flight.  Alan P decided to have a rest from short circuits in his Olly and handed over to Alan B to add a new type to his log book.  He obviously hadn’t been told the Olly was just doing circuits as he flew for 38 minutes.  On handing it back to Alan P normality (i.e. a short flight) was restored.

Meanwhile at the top end of the field the phantom grass cutter was attacking some of the vigorous spring grass.
20 members flew, including Alex R one of our new junior members taking advantage of half term.  Almost 10 hours flown off 37 launches.