Dartmoor Gliding News-Wednesday 22nd October 2014

This year's autumn weather at Brentor has been characterised by huge contrasts. At one end of the scale there have been some fantastic wave days, while at the other, rather too many non-flyable days due to gale force winds, torrential rain and low cloud - and sometime a combination of all three.

A generally grey day with the wind nicely down the runway

For ab initio and early solo pilots who have flown in wave recently with an instructor, the experience has been memorable. However, for your average student who has had enough of the buttock clenching and character building that accompanies it, and who just wants to progress gently up the training ladder, all this 'shock and awe' in the air - or huddling round the wood burner in the clubhouse - can get a bit much.  What was needed was a relatively benign autumn training day, with 12 knots or so of wind straight down the runway, the winch way back in the west end field routinely powering our two-seaters to 1,500ft and K8s to 1,700 ft plus, and in so doing, not a single cable break.

One Day Course candidate Jessie Kane

Well, as promised by the met man since last weekend such a day arrived this morning, and there were plenty of club members were here to make the most of it, as well as two one-day course candidates, Jesse Kane(celebrating his 31st birthday), and Alan Roberson an ex hang glider pilot (seeking news thrills?)
Club training-wise, our Wednesday regulars were joined by 13-year-old junior member Ross Pratt, who flew with Ged, and whose mum (and chauffeur) Leslie waited patiently but resisted encouragement to have a go herself. Also present was LS4 owner from 'The Park', Bob Purdie, familiarising himself with flying non-glass gliders from our sometimes challenging site. (Coincidentally it turned out that he had flown at one of my former clubs, York Soaring Association in Canada.)

One Day Course candidate Alan Roberson

Despite a technical glitch which delayed the start of our one-day courses by half an hour, Steve Lewis again did a fantastic job, and with a little help from Ged ensured that our visitors left with smiles on their faces.

Single seater-wise, the Astirs of Steve Raine and Phil Hardwick/Andrew Beaumont were as usual rigged and 'up there' early, to be joined later in the day Robin Wilson's K6cr, Mike Keller's K8 and also the club's K8. There were some burblings of ill-defined lift around for much of the time which, combined with the fantastic launches (40 in all) enabled some 'delayed descents'. Alan Holland delayed the longest with a flight time of 17 minutes matching Steve’s soaring flight in the K7M earlier in the day.

A big thank you, by the way, to what I would describe as our 'hard core' members, who made today happen by driving the winch, retrieving cables and gliders efficiently, and running the launch point and tower. I may be wrong, but I don't think anyone got stuck with winch driving for more than an hour or so.

Well, all of the above is really only scene-setting for the two greatest achievements of the day, which were first solos in Brentor gliders by Chris Jones and Ian Osborne. They, like several of their contemporaries, were well on their way to going solo - in their case only needing completion of a few of the more challenging flying exercises to confirm to me that they were ready for the big moment. The weather was right, those exercises were completed and the big moment arrived - in Chris's case with two solo flights at the start of the day, and with Ian squeezing in one impeccable flight just before the drop in temperature drove us all back to the warmth of the clubhouse.

Chris, Bob and Ian celebrating 2 solos

Very well done guys!  Although I was in the privileged position of sending you solo, if you haven't bought
them one already, you owe a beer to my fellow instructors who have also contributed to your training.
Bob Pirie

Footnote: Looking at an old log book and reflecting on what an amazing experience that first solo can be, it occurred to me that I was too young to buy a beer for the chap who sent me solo at Lasham - 57 years ago next Monday.