Dartmoor Gliding News-Saturday 11th February 2023

The day started with 8/8ths cloud cover which had a fairly uniform look to it. This was definitely a bit uninspiring, but with little or no breeze it would be a good training day. Initially we fielded just two K13s but as flying started a small team, led by Fleet Manager Gavin, assembled FSD and prepared it to rejoin the fleet after it's CofA / ARC. So just after midday we were up to 3*K13s which went some way to ease the pressure caused by the missing K8s which are both off for CofA.

An uninspiring sky

We welcomed 2 One Day Courses today, brother and sister James and Nicolette Morrison. James flew with Scratch whilst Nicolette flew with me. My first 2 flights with Nicolette were the expected smooth circuits after which we had a break during which the even grey clouds started to show some interesting variations. To the south there looked like there was a convergence. Bit of a puzzle that.

Nicolette waiting for me to stop taking photos

Scratch and James

Flight 3 with Nicolette revealed that things were changing in the air, there was signs of some reduced sink and over the south field the air was showing the signs of a thermal forming; little bubbles of lift in what was now feeling like buoyant air. This arrested our downward glide and a bit of careful flying we gradually gained height. Once we were above 1200 feet we could circle with lift the whole way around, Soon we whisked up to 1800 feet and were able to make our way to the "convergence" feature which was a little to the north by now. Sure enough approaching that there was lift everywhere and we could maintain height flying in straight lines while going through our training exercises. After half an hour we reluctantly airbraked back down to the airfield to return the glider for her brother's next flights with Scratch for a flight time of 32 minutes. Great fun.

Milosz enjoys some soaring with Rick in CCY

Steve Fletcher's view of the airfield from cloud base

While we were flying, the fleet launched and the sky became busy with soaring gliders including Steve Fletcher in his Open Cirrus and Mike Bennett in his K6 plus the other K13s. Flight times were quite respectable with the K13s recording flights of 39, 32, 27, 24 and 22 minutes with the Open Cirrus recording 38 and the K6 33 minutes. By 3.30 though it was all over and the air returned to its previous smooth nature with gliders once again flying around the circuit.

New member Roman ready to begin his flying career

The K13 launches again into the evening sky.

Another good training day with the bonus of a short soaring window.

Steve