Today rasp was giving a 5 star rating so there was a lot of activity rigging private aircraft and preparing the club aircraft. Richard Roberts was keen to set off on a 300km flight to The Park and back. Richard launched at 11:29, but was back on the ground after 10 minutes and a poor decision. See his account below.
Steve Fletcher followed at 11:44, but was also back on the ground after 6 minutes. This didn't look good for me in the Kestrel as I was third in line. Off the top of the launch I found some lift and climbed to nearly 2000ft, but struggled after that and thought I was going to follow Richard and Steve, but as I was going into circuit found some good lift and managed to stay up for a total of 1 hour 20 minutes.
I saw Richard, Steve, Mike Bennett (K6) and Malcolm WJ/Malcolm Roberts (Twin Astir) all launch whilst I was flying.
Visiting pilot Nigel Bray was first to fly with duty instructor Rick Wiles for a couple of site checks.
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| Nigel ready for his site checks. |
Nigel usually flies at Vale of White Horse GC and is in the south west on holiday. After his successful flights he was cleared to fly his Pegassus that he had brought with him. Four flights saw him happy with his DGS flying and hopes to return in the next week for some more.
Duty IFP, Hugh Gascoyne was going to be kept busy with a string of visitors. First was John Heard, a farmer friend of our landlord. A good impression was made with a 30 minute soaring flight.
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| John Heard receiving his certificate. |
Next to fly with Hugh was Linda Statton. Linda was also treated to a 40 minute soaring flight.
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| Linda Statton with Hugh. |
Following on from two happy customers could Hugh achieve a hat-trick. Lucy de Glanville was next to fly. And yes, Lucy was similarly treated to a 35 minute flight.
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| Lucy de Glanville receiving her certificate. |
Following Hugh's successful flights, Mike Jardine took over the back seat to fly our last two visitors. Ciaran Kane (sorry no photo) and Wendy Coulton were each treated to shorter flights.
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| Wendy Coulton with Mike. |
Rick had two trainees to fly with. Chris Morris and Steve Lesson both continued on their progress towards their goals.
Of the solo pilots who took off earlier, Steve managed 1 hour 21 minutes, Mike (K6) 22 minutes and the Malcolm pairing (Twin Astir) 2 hour 25 minutes. Colin Boyd (K6) also managed 23 minutes and John Allen (K6) 1 hour 55 minutes.
What about our cross country pundit. Well he never quite made it to The Park and whilst trying to make it back to Brentor landed north of Okehampton. Richards account:-
Looking
at the rasp spot forecast , it showed good conditions at Brentor , but as you
moved east the higher cloud cover seemed to keep a lid on the forecast
convection. The Lasham forecasters were basically saying if you
can get away from Lasham go to the Southwest.
I
decided to set 302 km to “the park east” turn point from my takeoff point at
Brentor.
I
set off at 1230, but is wasn’t easy. I restarted the task at 1315 and set off
again. Every time I pushed further east could see there wasn’t much sun on the
ground ahead , so had to keep stopping until I could see some hope of the sun
warming the ground to a level that would give the thermals I needed.
This
process proved slow going until I got to Glastonbury ,when I couldn’t see any
sun on the ground ahead.
Deciding
the risk of landing out out weighed my desire to reach my intended turn point
(38km away) it was now just after 3pm ,and if I wanted to get back to Brentor I
couldn’t afford to wait for the sun to break through again.
So ,
I turned 180 degrees started to head back ,thinking to myself it would aleast
be an easy run back in the sun….. it wasn’t. The cloud base that was forecast
to go to 5-5500ft stuck stubbornly at 3500agl.
The
thermals were not that well formed and inconsistent.
But
…..they were still 4 knots average , but only when I managed to find them ,and
turn tight enough to stay in the narrow cores.
As I
got nearer Dartmoor the clouds on track looked even less well formed ,so I
headed to the better looking clouds well north of track, hoping to get on final
glide ( I was 3400ft short of that requirement , plus circuit height) , as it
turns out, the better clouds weren’t much help. But the farmers family I met
shortly after near knowstone ,who have a large flat field were a safe and
welcome end to todays difficult flight.
The
family had lots of questions about gliding , so spend a pleasant 25 min doing
my bit to promote out great sport ,and then the family’s children had photos
sat in the glider to show their friends at school the next day.
My
thanks to Steve Fletcher for the road retrieve.
Another interesting flight another field landing , however,
if you don’t try you will never know if you could have made it. I just
hope I “make it” a little more often very soon ……..before I run out of friends
to retrieve me.!!
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| Richard's retrieve. |
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| Thumbs down from Richard |
Thank you to all at the club today for a successful days flying.
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