Dartmoor Gliding News - Sunday 29th May 2022

 Another day which depending on which forecast you looked at, the rain could arrive at 10 O'Clock or as late as 4 O'Clock this afternoon. Withe the winch left out overnight, the only thing to do was move it to the other end of the airfield and prepare the aircraft ready to fly.

The ODC rang in early and as he only had to travel from Plymouth we arranged for him to make his way to the club as quickly as he could. Richard Roberts was duty BI and would brief Harry Dowling and start his flying course.

Harry and Richard ready.

Harry and Richard arriving back.

One of yesterday's new members returned today to sample Sunday flying. Peter Hamilton a lapsed glider pilot of 25 years was looking forward to getting more hands on today. On his third flight he managed his first landing at DGS. This brought a big smile to his face.

Peter and Peter ready to fly.

Peter Hamilton on approach

Our two junior members took time off at half term part way through their GCSE exams to progress their flying. Ollie Hunt and Riley Powell-Thomas each had three flights with me. On each of their third flights they both managed their first landings. Both could not believe they had actually landed a glider. Ollie's expression was "I was not expecting to do that this morning when I left home". Riley had similar thoughts.

Riley doing the ABCD check.

Ed borlase and Martin Broadway were the only solo pilots and both had a couple of circuits in the K8.

K13 launches into a darkening sky

With everybody who wanted to fly, flown and the rain closing in fast it was decided to put the toys away at about 2 o'clock. Thank you to all at the club today, particularly Phil Hardwick who winched, but was unable to fly due to the approaching rain.

Peter Howarth

Dartmoor Gliding News - Thursday 26th May 2022

Today the sky was overcast and to start with too low to fly. So the day started with some fettling of private gliders. Andy Davey test fitted a new wing dolly for his Libelle. I refitted the instrument panel to the Kestrel and switched on the new Flarm to see if the glider was picked up on Glide and Seek. Successful I removed the panel for some more fettling at home. Phil Hardwick also did some general fettling on the DG300 trailer. With no trainees on site today and a low turn out the assembled pilots started getting the field ready to at least put in a couple of circuits before Rick arrived to carry out Richard Roberts BI annual checks.

Richard and I did a quick weather check flight to make sure cloudbase was now high enough (a cheeky little practice for Richard before Rick's arrival). A launch to 1400ft and 8 minutes later we were back on the ground.

Richard flying the launch.

Grey overcast sky.

Malcolm WJ, John Allan and Gavin each took turns in the SF27 for extended circuits. Mike Jardine and I each had a solo flight in the K13 with me reaching the dizzying heights of a 10 minute flight.

SF27 returns.

John Allan getting ready

Rick had now arrived and had three flights with Richard including the obligatory launch failure saw Richard cleared for another year of BI flying.

Mike now took over the back seat of the K13 to fly with John Allan. John is starting to prepare for his Bronze C flying test in the near future.

John and Mike.

A small crew but quite a bit was achieved today. A big thankyou to Andy Davey who manned the winch for all flights without flying and Phil Hardwick for helping at the launchpoint and retrieving also without flying.

Peter Howarth

Dartmoor Gliding News-Saturday 21st May 2022

 The day started with a heavy overcast sky and a light southerly breeze forecast the strengthen and veer to the south west. Not a classic soaring day but that was not going to deter us today.

A southerly crosswind under an uninspiring sky

We welcomed a couple of new members today. Steve Leeson has joined with a new Fixed Price to Solo and Steven Inglefield has return after his One Day Course to continue with his training. Both flew with Rick Wiles. A warm welcome to you both.

Steve Leesson with Rick

We also welcomed 2 One Day Course Candidates Rob Edy and Michael Machin. Both flew with me and were making good progress in using the controls. Both left with smiles on their faces.

One Day Course Candidate Rob waiting to go

Michael Machin is keen to go again

There were several notable flights from the private gliders who were up to the challenge of climbing away in the difficult conditions. These included Phil Hardwick ( DG300) 1hr 46, Stephen Fletcher ( Open Cirrus) 1hr 6, Andy Davey ( Libelle) 1hr 23, and Ged Nevisky / Malcolm Wilton-Jones ( Twin Astir ) 1hr 32. All of these times were acheived while local soaring.

Difficult to spot Brentor Church from here

Some sun on the ground 

Sharing a thermal with the Open Cirrus

Mark Elliot captured the dramatic arrival of the Open Cirrus

So, a busy day with 44 launches and 2 new members. Excellent.

Steve

Dartmoor Gliding News - Sunday 22nd May 2022

 A small group of members gathered at the airfield. With a forecast of a light south-westerly wind and rasp predicting afternoon thermals optimism for a reasonable days flying was good. The airfield and aircraft were readied in swift time, leaving time for a quick tea and coffee before we flew.

First to fly with me was Mark Elliott. With Mark nearing his target to go solo launch failures was the order of the day. After a demo of a high go around failure followed by a surprise straight ahead failure and finally flying his own high go around, both well flown by Mark he took a full launch for a more relaxing flight. After trying to find some lift he made the decision to start his circuit. He made a poor decision to cross behind the winch to fly his circuit on the opposite side of the airfield. This resulted in him getting low in circuit, but without any prompting, realised this and he turned in early to land down the field. Well done Mark.

Mark very happy after his flights.

Today's duty IFP was Gavin Short. His first visitor Mark Nightingdale arrived. Mark came to the club from Yelverton with his wife, and within five minutes of their arrival rendezvoused with friends who were visiting from Brisbane, Australia and had travelled down from Sussex that morning. Such is the international draw of Dartmoor Gliding!  Mark works in medical IT and enjoyed two short flights with Gavin, which were a present from his wife.  He especially liked the sensation of the winch launch.

Mark with Gavin.

The only other trainee at the club today was Freddie Colton. The first flight was a demonstration of the zig-zag circuit to improve his judgement around the circuit. During the five flights he had through the day he was making better decisions and flying better circuits.

Top gun Freddie ready to fly.

Gavin's next visitor was Peter Pratt. Peter came to fly with us with a trial flight voucher that was a present from his daughter to celebrate his forthcoming 80th birthday.  Congratulations and Happy Birthday Peter.  He was accompanied by his wife and extended family; if you have been married for 58 years then a large family probably is a given.  Eight family members were in support of Peter which entailed multiple trips to ferry them to and from the launch point.  Peter had enjoyed a career in the civil service. When he heard of Gavin's naval service he revealed that he too had served; 12 years in the Royal Corps of Signals. Peter thoroughly enjoyed an extended soaring flight, climbing some 800 feet and taking in sights of the north and south coast, Tavistock where he and his wife live, and Plymouth on distant the horizon where his extended family hail from.  We wish Peter well in the remainder of his special birthday celebrations.

Peter celebrating his 80th birthday.

The solo pilots started launching as conditions seemed to be improving. Martin Broadway (Libelle) took three launches ti finally get away for a flight of 1 hour 11 minutes. Phil Hardwick (DG300) was luckier and got away first time for a flight of 1 hour 37 minutes. Richard Roberts (Discus) declared an optimistic out and return to Taunton. This was his summary of the flight:-

Launched  as soon as the weather would allow, made headway between 2200-3000 ft. Made it to north east of Credition, weather changed , I didn’t adjust my flying , got low , landed in a farmers field, met some lovely people, waited for a retrieve, packed up , came home. Sometimes that’s just gliding. But….you never know if you don’t try.

Richard about to launch.

Hard work this landing out.

Although he didn't make it back to the airfield, Richard claimed flight of the day with just over 2 hours.

Colin Boyd had a couple of late flights in the K8. One of which was 17 minutes trying to make use of a convergence. Andy Davey (Libelle) launched at a similar time and was able to make better use of the convergence for a flight of 1 hour 5 minutes.

Thank you to all at the club. A small group who made the best of the day for 21 flights with an averang time of 22 minutes.

Peter Howarth

Dartmoor Gliding News-Thursday 19th May 2022

It was my duty IFP day, but in contrast to Scratch’s previous one (comprising over 6 flights) I had only one booking for 4pm. I duly did a stint on the winch to fill some of the time. I gather there had been some work done on the winch to alleviate some over speeding issues, and this was borne out by the absence of weak link breaks or wave-offs. Returning to the launch point around 1pm, I had a five-minute circuit in the K6 to check conditions (tricky) prior to my visitor Stephen Barratt arriving (one hour early) at 3pm for his Trial Flight. It was a 60th birthday present, so I wanted to extend the flight to make it more memorable. However, as with all gliding exploits, the weather intervened. With only 1000ft on the launch and choppy thermals, we were soon back on the ground. Stephen will return another day when hopefully conditions will be more suited to first time flyers.

Stephen Barratt awaits his Trial Flight.
I really must do something about my hat!

With only two short flights to my name thus far, and the prospect of conditions improving, I jumped back into the K13 rear seat, with Richard Roberts (right) in the front seat. I wanted to do a hangar landing exercise but was hopeful of some soaring. My wishes were granted shortly after releasing and pushing into wind towards the south. What ensued was a thoroughly enjoyable half-hour romp around the thermal cores north of Tavistock, topping out around 1800ft for us.

“Straps tight in the front?” “Yessir!”

Conditions were to improve again later, as I found out when taking a flight with Robin Wilson in the K13. Robin ramped up his flying time with a 51-minute soaring flight to 3100ft! Some of the climbs were at +6kts although the cores were still quite narrow. We were photographed (below) by Mike Jardine with whom we shared a thermal up to cloud base.

Robin Wilson and I in the K13 from Mike Jardine’s
vantage point directly above the airfield.

What follows are some submissions by other DGS pilots who flew on the day, taking advantage of an unexpected but very welcome improvement in conditions.

Hugh Gascoyne

I arrived at the club not sure if I would rig my glider. Exiting my car to open the gate I bumped my head and cricked my neck. Then followed a headache that cleared after drinking water. So not in the right state of mind to rig.

Gavin – sans headache, ready to take the north cable.

After several hours running the tower I took a launch in the club K-8. I climbed 150' above launch height but then found sink so I had only 8 minutes in the air. Then I launched into yet more massive sink and realised that I had to modify my circuit and land on the runway from the other end (the wind was directly across the runway). The total flight time was 3 minutes. Things were getting worse not better.

So, I waited until almost 5pm and made a soaring flight in the local area, managing to climb to cloud base at 3,100 ft height above the runway. I shared several thermals with the big wings of Peter's Kestrel and some buzzards. After 1 hour 19 minutes I made a hangar landing and put the glider away.

Despite the inauspicious start, a most welcome soaring flight meant that at the end of the day all was well in the world. Headache and cricked neck forgotten. Gliding does that to you!

Gavin Short

Not much to report, I trimmed the vegetation that was obscuring our glider sign on the A386 north of Tavistock on the way to the club. First launch was to 800 feet so back on the ground in 5 minutes.

Second launch managed 29 minutes but then around 1530 the sky changed, and I watched as everyone launched and got away, so I then went again, managed to get to 3000 feet and came down to Grenofen and over to Lamerton - nice bimble around like everyone else. Nice end to the day.

Pic is me flying over my house.

Steve Fletcher

I had two flights today in Kestrel G-DDBK. A few pilots had been staying airborne, but as I prepared to launch some were returning to the airfield. The sky still looked as if things were working, but with only 1000ft to play with it resulted in only an 11-minute circuit. It wasn’t until late afternoon that things improved, and pilots started staying up again. I took another launch, and this time found some lift quickly and was soon climbing past 2000ft. I pushed into wind and was south of Tavistock towards Grenofen.

View of the Tamar from south of Tavistock

I spent a lot of time in this area with climbs up to 3100ft. As my confidence in the Kestrel is growing, I will be able to go even further as the summer progresses. This second flight was a duration of 1 hour 57 minutes.

Peter Howarth

Scratch approaches for landing in the Cirrus

Phil H in the DG300 tracks along by the side of the convergence
at 65 knots, still climbing!

Mike B surveys the energy line to the north
before his 25-minute soaring flight in the K6

Robin and Mal awaiting a launch in the Twin Astir.

Summarizing the day from an operational perspective it was undeniably a good day for launches and flight durations. Looking at Page 1 of the Log sheets there were 6 flights of over an hour in length. Provisional Flight of the Day goes to John Allen in the K6 with 2 hours 47 minutes - unless Page 2 says otherwise! Perhaps someone can corroborate this? The photo was taken from overhead Tavistock, at around 2600ft.

John Allen's view from his K6

Hugh Gascoyne

Dartmoor Gliding News-Saturday 14th May 2022

With a reasonable looking forecast today was always going to be busy. The day started early with an absolute fleet of private gliders being rigged along side the club gliders which were emerging from the hangar under a less than encouraging sky. It definitely looked like it could be showery but the forecast was correct on this point and there was no rain all day. The wind was going to be light(ish) and southerly. The launch point was set up at the east end.

The rigging area was busy

This was also a busy day for visitors. Steve Lewis was expecting a "flying visit" from a couple of glider pilots from Lasham who flew in in a Robin single engine powered aircraft. 

Steve's visitors arriving in the Robin

IFP Scratch (Dene Hitchen) had a full diary, Lily and Lola O'Flaherty, Peter Lewin, Liz Beckett  (flown by Gavin) and Lawrence Barnes ( also flown by Gavin). Club member Mark Elliot had several friends visiting, one of whom, Katlin Hellier had a couple of flights with Scratch towards the end of the day.

Gavin with Liz sharing a joke

Scratch with Katlin

Gavin presents the certificate to  Lawrence

The solo pilots really made the most of the soaring opportunities. As is often the case the challenge was finding and using the initial climb. Once above about 2000ft the soaring was a lot easier leading to Andy Davey (Libelle) disappearing for a day topping 4 hrs 5 mins. Other notable flights were Rick Wiles (Std Cirrus) 1hr 43, Hugh Gascoyne ( K6 FUB ) 1hr 56, Phil Hardwick ( DG300) 2hr 47, Malcolm Roberts and Robin Wilson ( Twin Astir) 1hr 12, Steve Fletcher ( Open Cirrus ) 2hours, Mike Jardine ( Std Cirrus) 1her 34, and Adam Hoskin ( K6 "Woody") 1hr 57. There were quite a few soaring flights in the up to 1 hour group.

K13 G-CFGN launches agaain

Hugh seems satisfied with his cross country foray to the north
( See separate blog post

K13s share a thermal

Mike Jardine's cockpit view at 3000ft.

Phew. What a busy day. 41 flights with an average flight time in excess of 30 minutes. Once again, many thanks to all the helpers.

Steve

Dartmoor Gliding News-Thursday 12th May 2022

 On my arrival this bright sunny Thursday morning, there was a forecast with some room for optimism.  Wind was given as a light westerly and RASP was giving a few stars. 

Club gliders were prepared and equipment setup with the winch at the west end.  Briefing was conducted, notably with NOTAMS indicating we should keep clear of Willsworthy firing range, and that someone may be playing with a large model aircraft north of Oakhampton.

Flying commenced with a few solo flights to test the conditions, some managing to stay aloft for a few extra minutes but soon returning to earth.  

Richard Roberts in his Discus, had other ideas and quickly reached cloudbase, then disappeared off northwards out of sight to find better conditions.  Richard writes;

“A front had just past the airfield and the cloud base was considerably lower. I used a broken tight thermal to get up to base and then headed north. Cloud base jumped up to 3000ft AGL. Spent a fun hour going up and down the edge in some clear air but mostly in the rain.

With few other chances of pushing out further, I headed back to the club from Launceston to find nothing but heavy sink.  Rain on the canopy hampered eyeballing the final glide. Computer still said I could make. After optimistically calling down wind on the radio, I decided that the lack of height for a full circuit meant only one thing, turn in early and land in the top field.  Much to my “retrieve crews” amusement! Wooden spoon nomination number one for the year…… open to all of course"

Richard waiting in the rain for his retrieve from Stephen Fletcher

Stephen Fletcher dutifully packed up the tow out gear and headed off to repay his debt from a few weeks ago.  Stephen had landed out in Somerset – a retrieve is a retrieve, and he did have to take down the fence on his own in the rain!!!

In fact Malcolm Wilton-Jones had also just experienced the same heavy sink only a minute before and made a wise decision to drop by the winch to say hello in his Twin Astir – making my session winching rather exciting today.

Anne Shears came from Ivybridge with her husband to take her trial flight that had been previously delayed by bad weather.  Both had a scientific and teaching background and were most interested in how gliders and the winch launch worked. Gavin was the duty Introductory Flight Pilot today, and managed to find some lift to extend the flight to 9 mins, even finding some lift in a rain shower before returning to earth.  We hope to see Anne again making use of her three-months free membership.

Anne Shears ready for take off on her Trial flight

Anne receiving her Certificate and 3 Months Free membership.

John Smith in the Club K8, added to his mounting total of (returning to) solo flights with some very challenging weak thermals at various points during the day. Also making some very tidy landings.

John Smith ready to launch

Rick arrived at around 1300hrs as per the new Thursday instructor rota, and flew a couple of flights each, by way of Trainee Basic Instructor training, for Scratch, Phil Hardwick, then later on a few flights with Gavin Short.  Gavin was asked to fly without using the stick, just the rudder, a very challenging exercise.

In the middle of the day the clouds overdeveloped, but within the grey there were still opportunities for some extended circuits.

Stephen Fletcher took a flight in his Open cirrus for 20mins, and Peter Howarth flew another flight in his new Kestrel, with its lovely slender 19m wings.  Mike Jardine took a quick flight in the K8.

Peter Howarth with his 19m wingspan Kestrel

Right at the end of the day at around 1745hrs, John Smith and I lined up for a final flight to hanger land the K8 and SF27 respectively.  The greyness cleared into a beautiful bright evening and the heat of the sun restarted some thermal activity. John was unlucky as the very promising dark grey cloud drifting towards us was just out of range for the K8. By my launch on the second cable it had helpfully drifted within range of extra glide angle of the SF27.  What I thought would be a quick final circuit and hanger landing, turned into a nice thermal to cloud base, then soaring about in the evening light for 55mins.

Looking down on Cox Tor 

Looking west towards the airfield (right of middle)

Views to Plymouth Sound

3kn of lift along the leading edge of the clouds to cloud base at 2,700ft

Keeping a mindful watch as the last glider was packed away on the ground, and finally seeing a circle of pilots, beers in hand looking up, I decided it was probably polite to head down – apparently it had been my round of beers, and was volunteered to write this blog – but the flight was worth it.  Thank you everyone for the flight and to everyone for making it a great day. 

You never know what or when the weather will do it's thing in Gliding!

John Allan