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

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