Dartmoor gliding News-Sunday 19th April 2015

If you take the road directly north out of Plymouth towards Tavistock and the club, but turn off right at Roborough roundabout, the lane leads you through Shaugh Prior, up onto Dartmoor, where a vast expanse of china clay pits clings to its southern edge (of which more later) sited between the villages of Lee Moor and Wotter.

And ‘wotter’ day we had today..! With the Met Office wind forecast to be 070 at 20kts, we were once again apprehensive that it would be too strong. In the event, the wind never went above 10kts and remained between north and north-east; so perfect for wave. Well, not quite since the profile did not increase with height but the cloudless sky allowed the sun to get to work on the ground creating strong afternoon thermals from which some memorable soaring flights ensued.

Roger Green's view of Tavistock down the wing of his ASW20

Launching before 0945 it was immediately apparent that some wave, albeit weak, was present thus enabling Paula Howarth to follow that well known path between the winch and the ‘sugar factory’ at Harford Bridge and achieve 15 minutes on first launch of the day. She was followed by Roger Appleboom with One Day Course student David Downton, from Plymouth, who remained aloft for 24 mins before 1045. This caused the ‘sudden’ realisation among the solo pilots that it might be worth getting into the sky, with Adrian Irwin departing in the Zugvögel to exploit the secondary wave, found partway down the airfield, for a leisurely hour (and one minute) by 1130.

Visitor Joy Norgate, from Newton Abbott

Visitor Martyn Griffiths flew with Roger Appleboom.

Visitor Mary Browne and Roger Appleboom

There was a steady stream of visitors for introductory flights who, with attendant partners, family and ‘groupies’ gave Dave Bourchier, Jerry Wellington and other ‘meeters and greeters’ plenty of opportunity to practice their “Welcome to Dartmoor Gliding” skills, “the emergency exits are here, here, and here...” Among these were Joy Norgate, from Newton Abbott, Martyn Griffiths, Mary Browne, Stephen Hart and Kirsty Falconer, from Tavistock (see photos). They were flown by IFPs Roger Appleboom and Pete Howarth, who took turns to man that equally vital piece of machinery, the winch (for which there are ‘Sits Vacant…’)

Visitor Stephen Hart flew with Peter Howarth

Visitor Kirsty Falconer, from Tavistock, with Peter Howarth.

Happy to Fly’ Ausie visitor Richard Henwood with Peter Howarth.

As the day wore on the wave was largely replaced by convection, the valley north of the field to Blackdown and large areas to the south veritably bursting with energy (but no cumulus), challenging trainees Elliot Acton (26 mins) and Kit Smith (43 mins) to stay within the thermals’ cores. And with the wind remaining relatively light from the north-north west what do think happened next? At about 1500 we were ‘gate crashed’ by a convergence zone that set itself up along a NW-SE line that was tantalisingly too far away to be reached by the two-seaters, but well within the grasp of those with glass (or a K-6) to hand, such as Roger Green and Martin Broadway, in their ASW-20Fs, Mike Gadd, in his Open Cirrus and Roger Appleboom in his K-6CR. Mike was able to use the convergence to climb to 5,300ft amsl, and reckoned that the line extended from just north of Tavistock to Ivybridge, a distance of approximately 16 miles, or 27 kms. This allowed the pair to take the spectacular photos of the china clay pits at Lee Moor and Wotter reproduced here
.

Mike Gadd in Open Cirrus approaching Lee Moor

That's a big hole

Although by close of play we had managed only 36 launches, if you take into account that 5 flights were in excess of 1 hour, (total 9½ hours flying) and that 4 launches were simulated launch failures, you get an average flight time of almost 19 mins per flight – which is not bad for Brentor at this time of year… Let’s hope that today set, as they say in management, a ‘benchmark’ for the rest of the season to be measured against, by the end of which we’ll be saying not “Wotter good day!” but “Notter-nother good day!”..?

"Plymouth in the mist" The Tamar estuary views through the convergence

Thanks go to winch drivers Roger, Pete and Allan Holland, and to Colin Boyd and Dave Bourchier for repairing the fence after a cable ‘excursion’ following a practice cable break. Thanks also go to ‘meeters and greeters’ and others who ensured that the paperwork was completed before the visitors donned their parachute.

Martin Cropper