Dartmoor Gliding News - Wednesday 11 December 2024 - Getting my gold height

Further to Wednesday's blog John Allan passed me his account of the day.  So here it is with more wonderful cloudscapes for our readers.

But before we get to the gliding, for the English Literature fans amongst the blog readers, of which there are at least two, I need to put Mark Twain's quote "There's gold in them thar hills" into context.  It's a misquote.  He supposedly got it indirectly from a Georgia assayer, Dr. Matthew Fleming Stephenson, who said, “there’s millions in it,” to keep locals from heading to California for the Gold Rush in 1849.  The phrase later became corrupted to the well know phrase above.

There is gold to be found in many places and mines on Dartmoor but in very small amounts (which matches the number of gliding height claims made over Dartmoor).  The largest yields were from the quarries at Merrivale, Princetown Prison, and Vixen Tor which on a fine day would all have been visible to John in his Mini-Nimbus.

Where you can find gold on the ground on Dartmoor

Cornish miners, and also some from Devon, emigrated during the gold rush and more generally for a better life. The California Inn is 14th Century free house and restaurant at California Cross.  The pub and crossroads are reputed to have got their name from the throngs of people who would meet at the coach house to take the stage coach to Plymouth and catch a ship heading west to the New World.

Anyhow, now to the bit you've been waiting for.  In John's words:

After nearly three weeks of poor weather, and a week of WhatsApp chatter and anticipation, Skysight and RASP both aligned and were showing a promising Dartmoor Wave forecast over the airfield.  But, would the wave manage to open up slots to allow us to get high?  With a very early start, we set about getting all the equipment out in the dark, Andy and I rigged as it got light, Phil was flying the Twin Astir.  No gaps in the cloud initially, so we adjourned for a cuppa, to warm up and a briefing. 

I had so many clothes on as it was forecast to be very cold at height, that it took me a while to get comfortable in my glider.  I needed be able to reach everything I needed during the flight, which proved tricky so stuff was jammed in either side of me. Chart (QFE, QNH and SPS noted on it), water, phone and spare battery for it (backup navigation), thick gloves, sun hat, woolly hat, sunglasses.  USB Logger turned on.  Brentor set as GOTO in the main navigation computer.

I launched at 1008 hrs,  I had spotted signs of a gap with a sliver of blue sky showing through the clouds to the north.  I pulled off at 1,400 feet cloudbase and headed left and back over the church where it had looked like there would be lift from the ground.  Finding turbulent lift, I just kept feeling my way along the obvious dark line of wave to where sunshine past Blackdown showed on the ground, indicating a gap.  I couldn't climb much, until the blue sky appeared above me, then started climbing up with misty clouds either side, but in sight of the ground either side below.  As I climbed it revealed an amazing other world of sunshine and I found myself at the bottom a large "valley" of clouds left and right with clear sight of the ground on the valley floor, all the way to Lydford ahead of me.  With figure 8's on the west, rising air, side of the valley, I climbed in strong smooth wave airflow, between 4-8 knots up.
 
The "Valley". The wind is from the right.

At about 4,000 feet, I could see over the eastern ridge of cloud, upwind to another gap in the  cloud "valley" upwind.  This meant I could push forward to the primary wave bar to the north east. Time to put on my cannula for oxygen,  I checked that it was pulsing as it should when set to start at 5,000 feet.  

John keeps an eye on another gap in the clouds near Lydford to ensure it doesn't fill in and disappear
Initially I had 4 knots up, roughly overhead the A386, North of Lydford and just downwind of the highest part of Dartmoor.  The lift gradually decreasing as I climbed.  I had in mind a goal of Gold Height 11,500 feet (a "safe" figure that allows for a 1,600 feet launch).  When I reached this, I still had 2 knots up.  Both visible slots below me had remained stable in position and size.  If anything they had opened slightly.

John tops out at over 13,000 feet AGL while heading south east
It was warm enough for comfort, no sign of icing and my oxygen working nicely, so I decided to go a bit higher.  At 13,300 feet (14,000 feet above sea level) the lift was down to less than 1 knot.  I couldn't go searching for anything better as I had to stay close to the slots below.  A radio call said they thought the clouds had closed in a bit.  My slots seemed the same, but I descended back down anyway, I'd achieved my goal.  I was taking care to stop every few thousand feet, to let the airframe warm up.  I had some slight misting that froze in the first phase, easily wiped off with a cloth.  Opening the vents a bit and facing the sun quickly sorted that.    

As I approached the gap, at the bottom of the valley of clouds, I did a few figure 8's and held my height to give me time to think through a plan.   

I knew exactly where I was.  My navigation moving map was already set to GOTO Brentor, 8 km away, out of sight due to my height, but I was at the northern end of the slot, so maybe 6 km from the end of it.  I made a radio call to check cloudbase, 1,350ft, not much change.  I picked two reasonable looking fields I could see below just in case!!!  Landing checks, undercarriage down now, airbrakes checked that they were not frozen shut.
 
John at the northern end of the wave gap
I set off down the middle of the slot, and dived down until below the cloud as I reached the end of the slot.  Wow, back in the real world of green and relative darkness below the cloud and inversion.  I reached high key still at 1,100 feet.  A club K-13 and Andy in his Libelle were nearby and looked to be climbing.
 
John view's Andy in his Libelle "M"
Wave lift under the cloud base was still working and a slot was opening up near Peter Tavy.   Andy had radioed to say he'd got above the clouds, so I went back up that slot and met him above the clouds.  We flew up a valley of cloud taking some photos on the way, to my original slot and descended down through it.
 
Formation wave flying with "M"  

 
       
A very happy John in his Mini-Nimbus.  Gold height in the bag!
What an adventure, and a satisfying flight.  Thank you to all the instructors and other pilots like Andy, Phil and a Richard who offer their excellent advice and helped me achieve a flight like this.
 
John Allan

John has also made a compilation video of his and Andy Davey's aerial photographs and videos. 

 
Here is John's flight on the BGA ladder with a barogram - the highest flight in the U.K. in December so far.
 
 John's flight on the BGA ladder  with more photos of his gold height flight.

Gavin Short

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