Dartmoor Gliding News - Thursday 13 April 2023

Yesterday, Wednesday, Storm Noa battered the south west.  No flying then, but activity at the gliding club continued unabated. 

I arrived late on parade due to searching high and low for replacement combination padlocks.  I finally had success in the small hardware store on Vigo bridge, Shields, in Tavistock.  After setting the combinations the club buildings are correctly secured once again.

A select work party; Peter and I, helped Colin refit the ailerons to the wings of K-8, GDK.  The new hinges had been previously bolted to the ailerons. Now the ailerons needed to be bolted to the wings.  We did the work in the hangar aided by head torches.  Locating the bolts, attaching the nuts, and tightening them up via the small access holes cut into the wings was exacting work.  But with a bit of ingenuity, the job was done.  However, more thought and dexterity were required to extricate all of Colin's tools from the wings prior to sealing the access holes.

Hangar elves hard at work reattaching the aileron to K-8, GDK' starboard wing

So today, Thursday, would be this week's Wednesday (Ed: Keep up at the back). Mike Jardine, the Duty Instructor, could recreate his pre-retirement routine by flying on a Thursday.  With the hangar doors open the result of yesterday's work could be admired.  The wings of K-8, GDK, had their ailerons again (Ed: They are looking very smart).

GDK's wings are complete once more

A small number of early potential "Thursday Triers", after tea of course, proved to be just enough bodies to try and aviate.  No visitors were booked and eventually twelve members turned up (Ed: Some considerably later than others, Andrew).  So Mike Jardine whipped us into shape for the day. 

Would you pull the gliders out the hangar with a sky to the north west like this?

The north-westerly breeze dictated that we would be launching from the east end.  The main questions were how damp would the ground be at the launch point and how long would the showers persist?

 

Ever the optimists, privateers Phil and Andy rigged their DG300 and Libelle gliders, respectively.  (Ed: The full title of the Libelle is the Glasflügel 201 Standard Libelle.  Libelle is German for Dragonfly).  For their troubles mother nature provided them with a free wash before their gliders were moved to the east end.

Phil and Andy rigging before the next shower

We waited for the showers and black clouds to pass and then we got  a K-13 out.  A shower passed. We got a K-8 put.  Another shower passed. Then another shower passed (Ed: I get it.  There was a certain Monty Pythonesque feeling to the day).  Then we sheltered in the launch bus as a longer shower passed.

 

Happy DGS campers all enjoying the protection that the launch bus provides

After 42 minutes, as predicted by Peter, the rain stopped. We dried the gliders and went flying.

Squeegees to the fore and getting ready to realign the gliders for take off (Ed: They had been aligned across the wind to protect them from any squally gusts)

Phil returns from his first flight. At 3 minutes it was the shortest full flight of the day! (Ed: There was a lot of sink about).

The first trainee up was Steve Lesson who flew with Mike to get rid of some cobwebs. Steve enjoyed a further three circuits during the day (Ed: So hopefully you are back in the groove).

More work with the squeegees

The sky looked better to the south west

Then Steve Fletcher took a short flight in K-8, FXB.

Steve prepares to aviate (Ed: Watch out for the sink)

A closer look at the cumulo-nimbus cloud building to the south (Ed: Fortunately it was heading away from the airfield but its always important to monitor Cu-Nims).

Alasdair Barclay also enjoyed four flights, one soaring and one circuit, followed later by a practice cable break and a low level launch failure demonstration.

It must be getting warmer.  Soaring hats replace woolly hats (Ed: Has spring finally arrived)

After much chatter Steve Fletcher flew in the back seat with Mike Jardine, twice, as part of his training to become qualified as an Introductory flight Pilot.  And Hugh Gascoyne, who is already and IFP, also had some refreshers with Mike.

Steve Fletcher finds 4 knots of lift straight off the top of the launch (Ed: This was Mike's view from the front seat for a lot of today's flights)

A thermic sky looking south towards the Hamoaze

FXB joins CCY in a thermal

Soon Gavin, in FXB, is well positioned on the opposite side of the thermal to CCY

Having climbed to 2,000 ft Mike is ready to start some exercises in CCY

Throughout the afternoon finding the lift proved challenging with many finding sink everywhere.  Those who "got away" found that the lift was not where one expected with the strong westerly wind at height, the lift often appearing "in the blue" rather than under promising looking cumulus.

Andy's Libelle waiting for the right moment to launch (Ed: Which was obviously carefully considered and resulted in a flight of 1 Hour 24 minutes)

The two Steves help Phil move his DG300 "Supership" on line" (Ed: Nah! This is more like two schoolboys posing next to a flash sports car that they aspire to own).

Hugh in contemplative mood in the K-8 (Ed: "To break, or to not break, the weak link.  That is the question?" to paraphrase the Bard).

Two wise sages put the world to rights

"Man of the Match" was Andy Davey with 1hour 24 minutes.  Followed by me in the K-8 (1 hour 4 minutes - well it was a club aircraft so I limited the flight to an hour), and then Phil with 51 minutes.  Once you got some height there was a lot of lift.  I found some 7-8 knot climbs towards the end of my flight and earlier in the day Peter enjoyed 10 knots of lift under the cloud streets.  He reports having to  use the air brakes to avoid going into cloud.  I must admit it felt almost sacrilegious to air brake from 3,000 ft all the way down to high key at 800 ft.  To add insult to injury as soon as I shut the air brakes there was 2 knots of lift trying to take me up again, which complicated my circuit planning. 

Privateers at rest (Ed: The sky is still working)

After 1600 it was clear that we are still in April as the temperature started dropping.  Colin came up from the workshop and had a flight.  David Archer, after working on the antennas on the launch bus and fixing the radio antenna in FXB, had a flight with Mike; a go around practice cable break (Ed: What a sumptuous reward for his hard work!)

Alasdair runs through the CB SIFT BEC mnemonic pausing on "E" because you never know what is going happen with these pesky instructors.

Andrew, back from his second soaring flight at almost 1800, prepares the aircraft for Steve Fletcher to undergo some eventualities training  (Ed: A go around practice break)

And almost at the midnight hour Andrew Downing joined us (Ed:  I think you are being unduly harsh. Andrew is just spreading the training load and avoiding bottle necks as the Committee is keen that members do so!) and Mike promptly popped him in CCY for two soaring flights of 11 and 22 minutes a piece (Ed: Andrew;  Soaring.  This is what all the fuss is about.  Your winter training has been simply that - winter training.  Now the real flying starts).

Andy might have won "Man of the Match" but the "Man of the Day" was definitely Mike Jardine who called the weather window between Storm Noa and the next frontal system coming in from the Atlantic. Twenty-seven flights (pre-solo, post-solo, and instructor training, refresher flights, soaring instruction for pre-solo pilots, soaring for pundits, and lots of training and practice of eventualities   Pretty impressive since we didn't start flying until midday due to the heavy showers.

At the time of writing RASP is forecasting 4.5 stars for Saturday.  Be there or be square.

Gavin Short