A change in the weather today was bound to generate plenty of excitement at
the airfield. It was dry, cold and the wind was forecast to be from the SE.
Regular readers will know that, at Dartmoor Gliding, any wind with east in it
brings with it the chance of lee wave.
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| Jorg working on HXP |
Arriving at the airfield, there was already plenty of activity. Unfortunately
in their hurry, K13 G-CHXP had it’s main wheel tyre valve torn out, making the
aircraft un-serviceable. Jorg and Dave set about changing out the damaged inner
tube. Normally this would take about half an hour. Yes, I know that an F! car
gets 4 new wheels in under 3 seconds. But due to a comedy of errors /
unfortunate coincidences, which would have served well as the basis of a script
for Charlie Chaplin, it was nearly 2 hours before the aircraft was ready to
fly.
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| Don and Steve putting HXP to use for instructor training |
Meanwhile, flying continued with a mixture of check flights, Instructor and
pre-solo training. Was there wave? Well no. There were all the signs, lots of
rotor turbulence, cloud appearing and disappearing, areas of heavy sinking air
and a few challenging approaches, but no smooth wave lift. Looking at the
temperature profiles this could have been predicted. The wind speed was not
increasing with height. The inversion was a bit higher than would be best but
other wise the airmass looked stable. The wind direction above the inversion
reversed 180 degrees to become westerly!! Better luck next time chaps, but the
practice in the rotors will stand you in good stead.
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| Wednesday's 12pm sounding |
We welcomed visitors Eric Underwood and his wife. They had arrived just to
find out where we were but as conditions were flyable and Eric had brought his
voucher with him he enjoyed a couple of flights with instructor Ged Nevisky.
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| Eric is ready for his air experience flight picture here with his wife. |
It remained cold all day with every one wrapped up in their own brand of cold
weather clothing. By early evening we had completed 31 flights, not a bad total
but lowered a bit by the late arrival of HXP.
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| Steve Raine is in there somewhere |
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Flying continued into the early evening
with the moon high in the clear blue sky |
Thanks today to all who helped out as ground crew and to Jorg and Dave for
the marathon wheel change.
Steve
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