Today was designated for club experienced pilots only. This done to allow our instructors a little time to fly for themselves in their own gliders without the pressure to man the back seat of the 2 seaters.
The RASP forecast was suggesting a hopelessly optimistic picture. In reality, with the strong NW wind, soaring conditions at Brentor can be testing with large areas of sinking air interspersed with tight, narrow, and often very boisterous, thermals. This may be due to wave effects from the coast or Bodmin moor but the jury is still out on that theory.
Today lived up to this pattern, particularly early on when missing one thermal would put you on the ground again. My own flight was like this; flying the mighty Jantar 1, I scratched away from 500 feet in what felt like a narrow column of thermal bubbles which topped out at 2000 feet. Pushing forward into the wind from the edge of Dartmoor where the climb had drifted me, I skipped the first couple of thermals ( standard practice flying this glider ) only to find that the cloud I aimed for gave nothing; a few minutes later I was sitting on the runway trying to figure out what had happened.
 |
| The Jantar 1 waiting to join the fun |
Ged Nevisky did a better flying his Open Cirrus but abandoned his task after taking more that an hour and twenty minutes to reach Roadford Lake which is usually regarded as local soaring in good conditions.
 |
| Ged Nevishy and his Open Cirrus |
The best effort today by a long way was Rick Wiles flying the club Pirat. Rick managed to approach the M5 52.6 km away where he turned to head back to Brentor. This is where things got even more difficult and he eventually landed out just east of Okehampton. This flight will count as his 50km Cross Country flight and completes his Silver “C”.
 |
| Rick waiting to go in the Pirat |
After putting away our own gliders, Ged and I, accompanied by Scratch Hitchin, went out and retrieved Rick from his field. I must say he picked a really good field with a great surface. Access was a bit testing but a little hand pushing of the trailer soon sorted that out. We returned the the airfield just as the sun was setting which is disappointingly early these days.
 |
| The Pirat's first wing tip is off and being put into the trailer |
So what did we achieve.19 launches for a total flight time of over 10 hours. a successful 50 km flight to create a new Silver ”C” and a successful retrieve. A really good day.
Steve
No comments:
Post a Comment