Dartmoor Gliding News-Wednesday 19th December 2014

What a difference a week makes - or even a few days - as this particularly volatile month of December blasts its way towards Christmas and New Year.

Only a week ago I was urging our solo pilots to come on down to take advantage of the pleasant flying conditions and the opportunity to stay current. Then over the weekend, things were spiced up by all that talk of 2,000ft launches.  But today dawned with the airfield covered in standing water from torrential overnight rain, and a forecast of heavy showers, gale force winds and squalls promising to lower the chill factor and raise even the oldest and boldest pilots' pulse rates.

Arriving at  Brentor later than intended, having undertaken a major diversion (i.e. got totally lost!) after encountering road closures around the village of Chillaton, I wended my way through the lanes of Devon expecting to find a minimal turnout of club members.

Adrian and Bob get ready in the K13

 But not a bit of it!. Admittedly our numbers were few - although not too few to operate - so while David Rippon headed up to the winch, Adrian Irwin, Jorg Beasley, and Johns Bolt and Rogers wrestled a tightly-held K13 DMX to the launch point. John Bolt glued himself into the control tower, while Steve Lewis once again supervised  ground operations and ensured rigorous care with ground handling. So we got the show on the road. With the wind from the west, and lines of rain-bearing cloud interspersed by clear slots, we achieved launch heights of 1500-1800 ft, despite deciding to leave the winch within the airfield boundary, so as not to churn up the farmer's field.

Bob also took a solo flight to explore the conditions.

Although conditions on the ground and in the air were lively, it was a useful experience- and confidence-building day, with squalls arriving as promised, and a vicious wind gradient to emphasise how essential it is to maintain nominated approach speed all the way down to round-out. The rain showers were pretty spectacular, but fortunately most skirted the airfield. Our ab initio students all did well and I think felt they had made progress, while for me it was also encouraging to see 'old hands' like David Rippon and Bob Sansom wanting to fly dual, rather than waiting to fly a 'token solo circuit' on a more benign day.

The solar panel inplace clubhouse roof

Once everyone who wanted to fly had done so, it was back to the hangar, where Jorg got stuck in with hosepipe and brush, while the rest of us admired what our earthbound colleagues had achieved while we'd been having fun. Today, in addition to our task-master extraordinaire David Bourchier undertaking various chores, Mike Gadd and Ged Nevisky spent the day equipping the clubhouse with a large solar panel for charging the club's glider batteries and running parts of the computer network. Meanwhile Colin Boyd and Alan Holland continued with the meticulous task of readying K13 G-CHXP for its possible incorporation into our club fleet.

K13 G-CHxp undergoing some fettling in the hangar

Bob Pirie