Dartmoor Gliding News-Sunday 26th April 2015

Another Sunday with a NE’ly wind forecast (Met Office 040 at 10kts) gave the possibility of wave, plus RASP predicting booming conditions in the afternoon led us into the not unreasonable belief that a good day among the clouds was in prospect. Our enthusiasm to get started was hampered, somewhat, by the low cloudbase, as clearly indicated by the tower on Brentor church, and hence we busied ourselves with monthly maintenance on the club gliders whilst the cloud gradually lifted.

Which by 11:00 it had, and we got under with our two One Day Courses, a father and son team: Alan and Sam Cade, who were flown, initially, by Introductory Flight Pilot Mike Jardine (see photos). At that point the wind resolutely remained exactly from the north (so no wave) and it was not until after lunch that the sun managed to break through to create convection, the first soaring flight being 19 mins by Adrian Irwin in the club K-8. Indeed Adrian’s claim to Flight of the Day looked pretty secure until much later on, around half past three, when Roger Appleboom, ‘fresh’ from the winch, managed 33 mins in the K-8 (to be followed by Barry Green with 22 mins in the same glider). To complete the solo listing, Allan Holland made it look oh so easy to go from release to cloudbase in a single spiral for as flight time of 17 mins.

Our One Day Course students were Alan Cade, a paediatrician at Derriford Hospital, accompanied by his son…

  …Sam Cade, aged 14.  Both enjoyed six flights each, with Alan receiving a bonus visit to the winch – courtesy of a land ahead launch failure..!

There was a good mix of trainees, with Pete Harvey consolidating his K-13 solo time whilst Kit Smith, unusually, managed to miss the thermals thus giving him the opportunity to practice his crosswind approaches and landings which, under the influence of the trees on the northern boundary, were quite ‘interesting’! Returning One Day Course temporary member Dave Downton enjoyed 3 flights with Mike and me.

As the time approached six o’clock we had a general consensus that all who wanted to fly had flown, so the day’s total was 32 launches and just over 4 hours total flying – a little disappointing but to be expected given the low cloudbase at start of day. We rejoiced in an abundance of winch drivers, however, thanks going to Roger Appleboom, Colin Boyd, Allan Holland, Mike Jardine and Barry Green. Thus although the promised wave and ‘booming’ conditions predicted by RASP never materialised, we nonetheless had some valuable ‘experiential learning’ in the crosswind. Thanks also go to Heather Horsewill for willingly clearing up the clubhouse after last evening’s AGM.

Martin Cropper