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.
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Where you can find gold on the ground on Dartmoor
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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.
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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.
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John keeps an eye on another gap in the clouds near Lydford to ensure it doesn't fill in and disappear
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Formation wave flying with "M" |
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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.
Gavin Short
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