As much as we love flying from Brentor it is sometimes good to get out and fly from somewhere else. Peter Howarth, Andy Davey, Phil Hardwick and myself decided we would return to Aston Down again this year for some soaring and hopefully cross country flying. On Sunday the 9th Phil and I went in convoy while Andy went via North Hill to pick up his Libelle and Peter drove straight from Plymouth.
Arriving mid afternoon we decided not to rig until the following morning as the weather wasn’t great.
Monday 9th August -
Mainly over cast skies but with cloud streets running WSW. Time to take a launch! Yours truly was volunteered to try first and whilst I was still pondering whether to go or not my three fellow friends duly pushed my glider to the front of the queue and smiled at me!
So off I went with a good launch to 1450 feet, with messy thermals low down which came and went throughout the day I managed to get up to cloud base at around 3500 feet and follow the cloud street to Nympsfield.
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| Approaching the cloud base which was at 3500 feet |
Andy took off just after me and got away going East reaching Cirencester before returning back with enough height to ensure getting back to the airfield against the brisk head wind. A flight of 2hrs 24mins.
Peter launched a bit later into what looked like a reasonable sky. The thermals were narrow and difficult to use. After a short flight and another of 38 minutes he returned to give Phil a chance to take the Astir. Phil decided on a local flight and getting a reasonable height and staying out of the Kemble ATZ he had a good look at all the British Airways Boeing 747s lined up and landed after 55 minutes.
Tuesday 10th August -
The weather forecast for today was more promising but saw another grey cloudy sky with cloud base around 2500 ft but with some very strong thermals. A difficult day for cross country given the low cloud base meant we were searching for lift a lot of the time, but there was lots of it. Whilst I set off to try and reach the Severn Estuary Andy headed slightly further North for Cinderford in the Forest of Dean.
After launching Peter was soon climbing towards cloud base at 2300ft and flew around the area before deciding to push into wind to the west and head for Nympsfield. Having got there he turned back to Aston Down and arrived back at 1500ft. Another climb back to cloud base and he decided to repeat the trip to Nympsfield but pushing a bit faster flying over Hampton Fields.
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| Minchinhampton and Hampton Fields |
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| Andy, Libelle and lunch |
” At 2500 feet the lift increased and with no other glider in sight or showing on flarm I went into cloud where the lift increased and I climbed to 4200 feet before being spat out the side of a small cumulus. I came out into a large area of clear sky with some much bigger and developing cumulus to the west. I flew towards a developing cloud that was tall but fairly narrow arriving at 3200 feet. Checking flarm and seeing no other traffic I entered the cloud and finding the core climbed at a steady 4-6kts as I passed 6500 feet the thermal got considerably rougher with the Vario off the scale. At 7200 feet it got very rough and I headed out of the cloud climbing a further 500 feet on the way. I burst out the side of the cloud and what confronted me made all the hard work worthwhile. I was above the great majority of the clouds and the view across the Seven Estuary and into Wales was fantastic. With this much height I decide to head for Cinderford but just short of Cinderford my flight computer showed I was under glide to get back to Aston Down so with a good looking cloud on track I took another cloud climb to 5500 which gave me plenty of height to get back to Aston.
Being able to cloud fly turned what would have been a very high work load flight probably within the local area of Aston Down into a fantastic flight with plenty of time to relax and enjoy the scenery which is so much better from high up.
Is it worth learning to cloud fly definitely YES.
Should you do it NO! I want the clouds to myself, sorry”.
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| Andy’s view from 7500 feet above the clouds) |
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| My View of the Severn Estuary from below the clouds |
All in all a good day ending with a beer in the club house garden….
Wednesday 11th August -
Originally Wednesday had a RASP forecast of 4 to 5 stars but the day dawned overcast and the RASP gave a depressing 1 or 2 stars for short periods of time. I had a problem tyre on my trailer so with little hope of flying we took the wheel off and I booked a slot at a local ATS to get a replacement. Phil had a trailer lighting issue so used the morning to check things out. Not thinking I would stay up for long and knowing I had to get to Stroud for 2 o’clock I took a launch just for the fun of it but after scrabbling around for a while I got into some good thermals but again with a low cloud base a cross country was not really on. After 1 hr I realised I had to get back to the airfield if I was to make the ATS appointment. After another 25 mins I was on the ground. Moral of the story being book a later appointment just in case there is a chance of a flight!
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| View of the local area |
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| Phil changing his mind and deciding to launch sooner rather than later |
Peter had a flight of 1 hour 19 minutes in weak thermals drifting the length of Aston Down and a little further down wind to cloud base at 2000ft with average climb rate of about 0.5 to 1 knt. A flight which Peter described as “hard work but equally rewarding as the previous day for different reasons”. Phil had the longest flight of the day at 1hr 33mins but by the time Andy flew the thermals had given way to sink and he managed the shortest flight of the trip at just 10 mins.
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| Aston Down Airfield |
Thursday 12th August
Looking at my calendar I realised it was 6 years to the day that I came for a trial flight at Brentor and enjoyed it so much I restarted flying after a nearly 35 year break!
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| My 6th year anniversary flight |
Peter flew later and with thermals being blown out due to the stronger 15 knt wind, he could only manage a flight of 10 minutes. He then took a busman’s holiday and spent the rest of the day helping with the course and club flying.
Sitting in the club hut over some excellent Fish and Chips from the local chippie and looking at Friday’s forecast we decided it wasn’t worth staying for another day and packed up and returned home late Thursday to miss the holiday traffic.
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| The team photo |
Summary.
Across the 4 days the 4 pilots clocked up a total of 20hrs and 47 mins, not bad given the low cloud and strong WSW winds.
Best distance flight was Andy to Cinderford and return.
Best Height gain was Andy to 7700 feet
Longest duration was me 3hours and 3 minutes.
We all agreed that we had a great time, enjoyed the flying and each others company and cant wait for our next adventure.
Steve Fletcher
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