Dartmoor Gliding News-Sunday 18th January 2015

Today we were ‘perplexed’ by ‘perspex’ - the stuff just wouldn’t demist. After the rain of recent days the ground was, admittedly, pretty damp, but the day dawned crisp, still and gin clear as the sun beat down from a cloudless sky (see photo). Even after a fairly slow start, caused by the need to complete monthly maintenance on the K-13 and K-8 (how quickly that month goes by…) which included polishing the canopies, once up on the airfield they misted up again, defiantly resisting the attentions of all available yellow dusters. A quick check of the Meteo forecast gave a clue, perhaps - humidity was 95% and, even though there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, the dusters were putting on as much condensation as they were removing!

The day started crisp, still and gin clear…

So we did what any aviator would do - we pressed on (safe in the knowledge that the DV panel would provide a clear view if the screen didn’t clear during the launch) and flung Adrian Irwin into the air in the K-8. At this point a brisk, northerly (90o) crosswind sprung up, accompanied by a significant gradient aloft, which not only put paid to any thoughts of cable break training, but also made any soaring quite tricky, and hence only relatively short flight times were recorded today. The wind strength and direction didn’t perturb Leith Whittington, however, in his sturdy and beautifully built Dart 17R (see photo), or trainees Chris Owen and Paula Howarth in the K-13 (see photo) who used the conditions to practice their crosswind circuits, approaches and landings to good effect. Pete Howarth was also prised out of the winch (thanks to the arrival of Colin Boyd) to fly in the K-8, thus maintaining his currency over the winter.

Leith Whittington's Dart 17R launches into a promising sky.

Paula Howarth flying the K-13 at 1200ft.

 We were visited today by Lloyd Jones, from Tavistock who, a long, long time ago and far, far away (in Northumbria) flew gliders with the Air Cadets. Recently disabled, and very capably hosted by returning member Richard Roberts, Lloyd was on a recce to see whether it might be possible to fly with us in one of our K-13s. We look forward to welcoming Lloyd back once all aspects of getting him into the air have been successfully resolved.

 "Howarth this is Howarth, over!"
The lunchtime winch and retrieve crew, Peter and Paul Howarth.

As the afternoon progressed, and keeping a good lookout for condensation on canopies, with the reducing angle of the sun we decided that 4pm approaching was a good time for hangar flights and baths for the gliders before bedtime. Thanks go to Paul Howarth and Colin Boyd for their winching, to Luke Botham for driving the retrieve before returning to his Shakespeare revision, and to Richard Roberts for his assistance at both ends of the airfield. Oh, and I’m giving myself a pat on the back for noticing that the winch’s coolant level was low at the DI (and topping it up with antifreeze). On checking later in the day this was discovered to be caused by a broken jubilee clip that was allowing coolant to escape. The consequences - both to the winch and the flying programme - of not noticing (and getting Colin Boyd to investigate) could have been far worse than just replacing a jubilee clip - that’s why we do a DI…

Martin Cropper