Saturday 28th May 2012

Blue sky, high pressure and a gale roaring from the east, and temperatures on the airfield in the high 20’s. Could be a difficult day

Even the pole seems to be about to succumb to the wind.

The very strong winds made glider handling difficult but the club members were up to the challenge, with gliders being handled very carefully and picketed out with LOTS of tyres.

In today's turbulent conditions, teamwork and 'muscle' were even more important than usual when it came to the safe rigging and de-rigging of gliders. Here the team prepares to put the wings on Martin and Bob's ASW20F.

The soundings for today were not exactly classic wave, there was a stable layer to approximately 3000 feet (good), instead of an inversion this was topped by an isothermic layer of another 3000 feet (better than nothing) but the deal breaker was the wind speed. Instead of it steadily increasing with height it rose very rapidly to about 45 - 50 knots at flying heights only to reduce the higher you went.

Still, nobody told Ged who managed to scrape away in the Twin Astir to finally top out at 6000 feet. Good effort. There was rotor and broken wave low down which, while enabling some soaring, ensured that the approaches were “character forming”. A day for experts only.

We welcomed Alec Watt from the Wyvern Army Gliding Club who arrived with Holly (crew) and 2 club members and a very beautifully refinished LS4. They paid us a visit after the were unable to fly at Northill after flying was scrubbed due to the wind strength. Alec, a very experienced instructor, had a check flight with Bob Pirie in the K13 and then flew solo in the LS4.

Today a case of  'Blast off' rather than 'Take Off'!  Here is visiting pilot Alec Watt in the Wyvern Gliding Club's LS4.

As the day wore on, the wind strength increased still further, the rotor got even worse and we reluctantly stopped flying mid afternoon. This meant that several club members and visitors unfortunately did not get to fly – thanks for your help and patience, better luck next time  And for those who did fly, a couple of valium and some rose tinted specs will make the experience seem worthwhile.

And elsewhere around the club, the Pirat syndicate had the C of A done on their glider and then spontaneously felt the need to sweep out the hanger, Many thanks. Sandra spent her time preparing the clubhouse for the EGM including a delicious buffet for the attendees. Food seemed to be a popular subject today. Malcolm disappeared  into his RV at regular intervals only to reappear with plates of bacon sandwiches produced by his wife. Very nice they were too.

Steve