Category: Uncategorised

With the evenings starting to draw in this was to be the last of this year’s Wednesday Evening flying sessions.
As predicted the heavy rain cleared around 4pm and left us with good but challenging flying conditions. The 20 knot + southerly breeze certainly gave high launches (I had 2000ft solo in the Puchacz!) but it also made the approach much more interesting. 70knots and full airbrake gave an almost vertical  approach which was quite different to what we had been teaching up to then!

All 4 of the group coped with the conditions well and I feel all of them have made excellent progress over the last few months, so much so that two of them are not far from going solo…well done!

Thanks go out to Steve Ottner, Steve Barber, Rod Harris, Chris Bessent and Richard Dann and anyone else I have forgotten for their invaluable help with these evenings, i’m sure all the abinitios are very grateful for the time you have given to these evenings.

Thanks again

Phil

Good call by Colin to slip Wednesday 1 day as we were treated to that rare thing this summer – a decent day. Over half the flights (excluding the evening progress group) were in excess of half an hour.  Just a pity about the Olympic ceiling as the best sky was within the restricted area.  I managed to escape west into the unrestricted area near Pewsey and found this Olympic torch to the west of Marlborough.

The lift from it was fairly pathetic but I stuck with it as it was very milky to the west and there was now no sign of lift on the route back to the club.  Straight glide back (and below 2,500 by the time I crossed the CTA7 boundary) not finding any lift until near the airfield.  After that it was simply running from cloud to cloud (each one worked!) and increasing speed in straight line to keep below the Olympic ceiling.
The mid-week Progress Group took over for the evening getting lots of practice in circuits and launch failures (Phil must have been suffering from vertigo).  Thanks to James H turning up and Paul P staying on we manged to keep 2 gliders on the go.

The early light showers cleared by 10am allowing the six of us who turned up plenty of decent flying.
With the wind straight down the strip launches over 1600ft were the norm.
Three trial  lessons were flown one even getting treated to a climb to 2500ft QFE.

Those who turned up early with a view to getting the field set-up before it got too hot were thwarted by a bent and bruised winch that need some TLC before if could be used.  It was, therefore, just before midday before the first launch.  Colin took the Puchacz to explore the land beyond the green mist (i.e. he flew under the Olympic ceiling to the unrestricted area – and returned!).  Paul P set the benchmark for longest flight at an hour.  Steve B and I rigged our gliders (both struggling to get the wings on – lack of practice?).  I was not encouraged when Steve B returned in cHZD after 5 minutes.  However, the winch driver was kinder to me (thanks Paul) and delivered me straight into a gentle thermal that carried me up to our current limit of 2,500′ from where I set forth.  Cleared the restricted area and straight into a thermal.  On to Calne, pausing to climb and attempt to take piccies of a crop-circle.  Climbed above Calne to just over 5,000 and headed home.  Distinct lack of lift coming back – first hint of anything just south of the Savernak.  Slowed right down to gain a couple of hundred feet then nose down to return back under the Olympic ceiling at spot on 2,500 with 100 knots on the clock.  Wonderful when a plan comes together 🙂

I’m pleased to report that Steve B’s 2nd launch was much more successful and resulted in the longest flight of the day at 1:19.  He had no trouble keeping below the Olympic ceiling as he sent time at 700′ (plus ridge height!) near Burbage picking fields (which, he avoided having to find out how good his choice was).
The Wednesday “Progress Group” was missing a few of the regulars but it did mean that Jim Mc and Selvan had lots of opportunity to practice circuits and landing on a just about perfect evening for doing so.