Dartmoor Gliding News-Aston Down Expedition 2022 Day 5. A Personal View John Allan

Friday 10th June. 2022

Fridays forecast seemed likely to be the best of the week.  RASP was showing cloud base up at over 3500ft and best thermal activity up until 1300hrs which worked well as Team DGS had generally decided to head home after lunch to avoid the Friday traffic on the M5.  Sam, the instructor for the week suggested another early start with a briefing at 0800hrs as we were expecting a lot of extra gliders to pitch up later due to the Nationals Competion, and it being a club day with a good forecast.

View from 3000ft looking west towards Nympsfield

First to fly was myself. Sam the instructor for the week, had kindly offered to give me an Aerotow briefing and instruction flight. I've never flown an aerotow launch before. Also by chance the very first launch behind their 150BHP Eurofox demonstrator, no pictures, but it was a very nice shiny dark blue and white, and had wings.  With 15Knots of 45 degree crosswind, Sam flew the ground run, pointing out eventualities up to a safe height for a circuit, then he handed over control.  My experience on Condor (simulator) seemed to pay off, and although quite gusty and thermic, I seemed to manage to follow the tug - at least well enough not to have him take over control!!!. I did an excercise to drop down and find the prop wash, then regain the correct position again.  Sam was very impressed with the climb rate on this Eurofox, commenting enthusiastically on the climb rate.  At 2100ft I relapsed and was nicely positioned near a promising looking cloud.  After a short climb to cloud base, we spent some time dashing along at 80Kn to maintain our height below the cloud street base.  First time in a really good cloud street, since my very first ever flight, and I must say it was a bit of a buzz.  I used the height to practice wing drop stalls until circuit height and then returned to ground.

Scratch came to join me for some photos
alongside of me in his Cirrus, FCN

On the ground Andy, Phil, and Rick had taken winch launches and soon found cloud base, and enjoyed thermals as they started to gradually built in strength during the morning. Rick returned after his hour to allow Scratch to fly in their syndicate Cirrus.  After my training flight I also launched again in the K6, keen to get in the air before we had to leave to go home.  I launched into a lovely thermal that took me up to cloud base and was soon flying up down under the dark grey flat bottomed cloud streets at around 3200ft. 

John in K6, Running along the cloud street,
with the vario giving 6 knots in a straight line at times.

Flying up around the edges of the street allowed
for another 200ft using lift found on the sunny side of the street,
or was it a convergence?

Also on the ground were Mike Bennett, who had decided not to fly today, Rick and Scratch when they weren't flying, plus one of the trainees on the course for the week, who were pretty much running the launch.  With a good forecast, and and competition starting the day after, a steady queue of top end gliders started to come online late morning., Mike and the others kindly spent the morning keeping them all in line - literally, as there were two lines, one for aerotow and one for winch launch.  I was able to land and taxi off the field safely, but close to our trailer park area, instead of blocking the landing further down the field - such is the smoothness of their grass strip.

This really capped off a great week away with Dartmoor Gliding.

A big thank you to Sam Prin the instructor, John, the winch driver, who provided us with great launches all week, along with the other Cotswold Gliding Club members that helped ground operations all week.  Also thanks for Scratch for cooking delicious food all week, and to Rick for sorting out the bookings.

John Allan