Saturday's Gliding Club News - 03/06/2023

Today started with lots of briefings. First up was Rick with the usual Notams and weather brief. The weather was going to be hot, blue sky ( maybe clouds later ) with a brisk NE wind going more easterly as the day wears on. Soaring potential certainly looked workable from about midday onwards. And the Notams ( Notices to Airmen ); passage of the Red Arrows tracking to the west of us late afternoon. Second briefing was for the visiting Devon and Somerset pilots delivered by Gavin and finally the Air Experience brief given by me to our One Day Course Candidate Nigel Lavender.

Early rigging

Nigel waiting for his first glider flight

So what of the soaring. Well my flights with One Day Course Candidate Nigel probably plots the developments. First flight at 11.20am was a circuit in somewhat turbulent air. Second flight 11.40am. Air quite buoyant and patient circling over the south farm in air that "felt" like it was going to develop was rewarded with a thermal climb to a little over 2000ft QFE ( above the airfield ). We returned voluntarily after 30 minutes for a lunch break. Flight 3 2.20pm found strong thermals at circuits heights quickly developing into 6/8 knots from 1800ft to the inversion at 4000ft QFE. An excellent if somewhat turbulent flight again voluntarily terminated after 51 minutes. ( and yes Mike Jardine we did air brake all the way down to the circuit again after a suitable radio call ).

Sights around the airfield.... the runway from the west

Blackdown

Mary Tavy

The Church of St Michael de Rupe ( Brentor church )

Club flying and training continued apace with lots of progress. After a couple of practice launch failures Alasdair Barclay added to his solo total with a circuit and later a 25 minute soaring flight in K13 FGR. Steve Lesson added to his solo count with a couple of flights in the K8 the second of which was a very creditable 59 minutes in K8 FXB. 

Busy launchpoint

Busy runway

The solo pilots all made soaring flights of various lengths. The longest of these by far was Andy Davey in his Libelle who was airborne  for 4 hours 6 minutes. Other flights of interest was Mike Bennett who soared for 30 minutes or so in his K6 after which he completed another 30 minutes in the front seat of the Twin Astir with Malcolm. Is there a further story there I wonder?

The Devon and Somerset visitors integrated into our operation very well and their K21 was busy all day with Instructors Mike Sloggett and James Florey sharing the flying. Mike also used my K13 at one point to re-aquaint one of the visitors with the pleasures of soaring in a K13. There are several soaring flights in the visitors log entries.

Part of the DGS technical team looking for help to rig K8 GDK

So a great day with some astonishing soaring shared with our visitors.

Steve