Dartmoor Gliding News-Sunday 12th October 2014

And Now - as John Cleese used to day on Monty Python - for Something Completely Different! After yesterday's shower laden south-westerly, overnight the wind reversed direction to become a cold, dry north-easterly. And what do NE'lies make..? NE'lies make wave!

Mike and Scratch launch for the "sniffer" flight

And so, although the early morning windsock showed nothing at all, it was with a spring in our step that we changed ends as rapidly as possible (or as rapidly as the Zetor tractor permits!) and - before 10:30 - had launched Mike Jardine and Scratch Hitchens in a 'sniffer' flight. Would they find it? There was no indication by way of lenticular cloud or rotor but, on their downwind leg, somewhere east of Brentor Church, they made contact.  And there they would have stayed all day, it seemed,were it not for the fact that Mike had a diary full of visitors to fly, the first of whom was due to arrive at 1100! You could almost see the reluctance with which they brought the K-13 back to earth, where a predictably growing queue of single seaters was eagerly awaiting the chance to explore the height and breadth of the wave. 

Jana Darmovalova piloting a glider for the first time in wave.

For those who know the area, the wave set itself up in the valley west of Blackdown where the disused railway line snakes its way northwards to North Brentor village, and could be followed to an area beyond Bridestowe, almost as far as the Meldon reservoir.

Adrian Irwin in the K-13, joining the ASW-20 on the same beat.

 In terms of height, the early birds, such as Roger Appleblossom, seemed to find 1kt  tailing off to a natural ceiling at 2,800ft, where as those more seasoned waveaholics, such as ageing rock star Colin Boyd, found sweet spots of 4-6 kts up, which didn't stop until 4,000ft or more, the prize finally going to retired banker Martin Broadway, in his 15m ASW20, with a height of 4,300ft, which just beat Chief Pirate Leith Whittington, in his 17m Dart 17'R', who was closely followed by ageing rock star Colin Boyd in the club K8.

Colin Boyd in the K-8 on his way to 4,000ft plus

 Whilst Mike Jardine was busy touting the advantages of silent flight to our visitors and their families (see photos), Chris Jones, Jana Darmovalova and Adrian Irwin enjoyed being able to ascend to 3,000ft or so without effort in K7M G-DCLT, using only minimal amounts of stick and rudder. 

Visitor Frank Roberts with his grandchildren

Visitor Mark Rich

Visitor Nino Tanner

Visitor Peter Tanner

Visitor Shirley White

And so life continued with blissful ease until a little after 4 when, and in hindsight perhaps ahead of an approaching warm front, it all went rapidly downhill.  The wind, which had been increasing gradually in strength through the day, backed  ever so slightly to North whereupon suddenly, it was down, down, down where ever you went. Flights which, only 30 minutes earlier, had been a 'walk in the wavepark' became life or death struggles for survival with 4s mixing it with 6s of sink and full control deflections necessary to keep the glider pointing in the desired direction.

Regrettably this put paid to father and son team Chris and Elliot Acton getting any hands on stick time. So, time to call it a day, then? Obviously not! Time, more like, to bring on lapsed Instructor Hugh Gascoyne to sample the conditions..! With the ASI showing a little over 65kts at 1,200ft with the winch on tick over, followed by a 2 minute roller coaster back to terra firma Hugh, who had asked for 'a few eventualities' got them in the flying describing his 2 flights as 'interesting' (or something similar) but also showing that he 'could still do it!' And well flown too, Hugh. As we left the airfield sitting under a huge Swiss roll of rotor cloud thinking, '

Roll cloud marking the arrival of a huge area of sinking air

 I'm glad I'm down here...', it was with the satisfaction that, not only had some old hands been able to exploit some luxuriantly smooth wave, but also that some who had never flown before were given a taste of flight over heights and distances they thought were not possible without some form of propulsion.

Thanks go to Scratch, Roger and Colin for winching, and to Luke, Jeff Cragg and many others for helping on the ground.

Martin Cropper