At the coast this morning the sky was blue and another balmy summer day seemed to be on the way. However, only a couple of miles inland there was a cloud sheet with a very smooth, straight looking edge which seemed to go on forever. Was this a "roll" cloud? Later conjecture suggested that this was probably the edge of a wave induced cap cloud sitting over Dartmoor from a wave system set off by the northern tors. Certainly the brisk wind was from the north.
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| Straight cloud edge Cap or Roll cloud? |
At the airfield the only sign of this dramatic skyscape was the 8/8ths cloud cover and the NNW wind . RASP was not looking very optimistic with maybe a little local soaring if we were lucky. In fact this led to Rick, today's instructor in charge, joking at the morning briefing that the lack of lift wouldn't stop Malcom or myself from soaring. We'll see.
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| One Day Course candidate Ian Loades |
We welcomed some visitors today. Ian Loades was our One Day Course candidate. Ian flew with me and together we enjoyed the heady mix of teach Ian to fly the aircraft while expolring the local area for any sources of lift. Richard and Christine Dumbleton late morning for Air Experience flights. Richard flew with Rick in DMX with I flew with Christine in HXP.
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| Visitor Christine |
Returning to see us today was Rita Smith who completed her One Day Course last week and continued her flying training today. Welcome to gliding Rita.
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| Todays uninspiring sky |
What of the soaring? With the winch in the top field launches were great. The k13s averaged 1350 and the K8 1500+. Early on there was a little lift available on the north ridge which enabled circuits to be extended. By 1pm there seemed to be a little definition in the cloud with some slightly darker patches. This drew the gliders like moths to a flame and some were rewarded with a little soaring. Longest flight was Malcolm in the K8 who managed 33 minutes followed by me in the K13 with visitor Ian.
Malcolm's view of his flight follows
"My flight from Brentor today. At briefing Rick had stated that there would be little if any usable lift, and that mostly late afternoon, but I might find it. I was about to go to the winch but someone had already just gone there so when Mike landed and said he had found some lift he suggested I try to make something out of it so I took up the challenge. A good launch to 1500' and I headed for a darker patch of cloud to the north and after losing a couple of hundred it started to get bubbly and I started climbing slowly and drifting to the south-west, so clearly the N wind had some E in it. Soon got to cloudbase at 1700' and headed for a large dark patch a couple of miles N of the airfield. At cloudbase I again headed North while increasing speed to stay below the cloud and once clear burnt off the speed, climbing to just over 1800' at which point I could see nothing more within reach so turned east towards some darker clouds in the distance. I arrived at these at about 1000' over Blackdown but found nothing of any use so tried the north slope of the airfield but again nothing until at 600' the vario squeaked but a quick turn did not produce a gain of more than a few feet so it was into the circuit and landed after 33 minutes."
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| Looking SSE over Brentor church to the airfield |
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| Cloudbase in the K8 |
Our thanks to all the helpers especially the winch drivers. Special mention for Heather who drove the retrieve all day..
A challenging day.
Steve.
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