Andy's forecast for the Wednesday Wavers: With high pressure centred over the UK, the weather is set fine. Wind light NW with some reasonable thermal activity from midday on. It will probably be blue initially, but I think we may get some cloud later in the day.
And that's how it came to pass. With no Jonah on the field (he's on holiday), the Wednesday Wavers enjoyed sunny conditions, light winds, wave, and thermals. A busy but perfect day.
Stand-in Duty Instructor Peter Howarth took trainee Ian King first. Ian made progress with three good flights and started controlling the speed on the approach and flying the top part of the launch.
Meanwhile, Phil took One Day Course candidate Garry Hooper up for his first three flights, the latter was an extended soaring flight. Later in the day he flew with Phil and fellow Basic Instructor Steve Lewis. By the end of the day, the thermal conditions died, and by mutual agreement will come back to finish his course. Gary was a weapon engineer in the Royal Navy serving in surface ships. Sadly, I didn't get a chance to speak to him about his service.
After these early flights, the pundits were rigged and ready; Andy and John Allan launched and managed to connect with some north-westerly wave.
Whilst those on the ground tracked their progress on Glide and Seek. Flightbook OGN also recorded their flights. Both sent tantalising photos of their progress.
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| Andy surfing the wave bars stretching to the south east |
Andy flew for 1 hour and 40 minutes tracking from Lewdown to Shaugh Prior in a North-westerly/south-easterly beat which was a right angles to the wind. This was probably set up by the higher wind speeds at the start of the day. Thermal activity would inevitably suppress the wave in the light winds in the middle of the day. However, at the end of the day, I noticed that on the final flights, a wave bar was aligned in that orientation. It looked like convergence, but was probably the wave setting up again.
Andy managed to climb to 6,437 feet above sea level, which was a total climb of 4,712 feet (Silver height). On analysing his flight, I saw that he managed an average glide ratio (L/D) of 211:1. Do you like your new glider Andy?
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| Andy's wave flight |
John Allan took off shortly after Andy and enjoyed a similar flight profile, but flew for 2 hours and 1 minute. John made a beat down to Ivybridge and then back up to Milton Combe. The first part of his flight was continuously over 5,000 feet above sea level.
John's comments on his flight:
After an initial push forwards to reach strong patchy rotor, we clawed
our way up into smooth wave over Peter Tavy, then had some very strong
lift, with the best at 8-10 knots alongside the wave clouds between
2,000-3,500 feet just south of the airfield towards
Tavistock. Then flew along it to turn Ivybridge East and back. After an
hour or so, it collapsed near the airfield and became thermic.
John didn't climb as high as Andy, 5,636 feet above sea level, but covered more distance, with a less overall glide ratio of 146:1. That notwithstanding, the performance of a glider on a wave flight is amazing. As the logo on one of my irreverent gliding T-shirts says, "Engines are for sissies".
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| John flew all the way to Ivybridge and back |
John managed to take a number of photos during his flight.
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Towards Ivybridge, the wave was less obvious with scattered cumulus,
and the odd lenticular cloud above the cumulus to help. |
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| Looking over Ugborough Beacon (bottom right) with South Brent beyond |
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| Climbing up alongside one of the random lenticulars, which marked slightly better lift. |
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| Ivybridge with Plymouth Sound in the distance |
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| Tavistock with Plymouth Sound and the Hamoaze beyond |
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| Around midday, the wave collapsed, the lenticulars disappeared and it became thermic, but it was very nice and clear |
Then Steve Fletcher put his Open Cirrus on the launch point and flew. This time, the sky looked thermic rather than wave. He explored the local area and spent much of it in rising air for a total flight time of 2 hours 14 minutes.
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| The sun glinting off the River Tamar |
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| Steve Fletcher observes Dave Archer thermalling in "Debbie" over Blackdown, on Dave's longest flight in his glider to date |
Peter took our trial flight visitor, Robin Matthias, aloft while Phil prepared to fly with visitor John Owen. Robin had two flights with Peter; Robin much enjoyed the views from the glider. John had two flights with Phil in the Puchacz, the second of which was an extended soaring flight.
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| Robin about to fly with Peter |
After the first batch of visitors, Peter switched back to our trainees and flew with Ken Hamblin. Ken had a fantastic soaring flight of 56 minutes, his longest yet, and he achieved a height of 4,000 ft AFE, his highest yet. Never has the expression "On cloud Nine" been so apt for Ken today.
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| Ken's view of the airfield during his momentous soaring flight |
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| Climbing nicely in over four knots of lift. Go Ken, Go! |
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| After all that climbing, Peter and Ken were rewarded with a fantastic view of Plymouth Sound and the Hamoaze |
Evidently, the soaring bug was contagious; Dave Archer got his K-6, G-DHEB out and rigged it. He soared for 41 minutes, his longest to date. Fantastic. Well done, Dave. Hopefully, you now see why people rave about a K-6. It's a delight to fly.
Dave reported that he managed to get to 3,000 ft and, if he had been brave enough, could have gone downwind to Liskeard.
Not to be outdone Ed rigged the "Red Rocket", EWO, his K-6 and went soaring too, but failed to pip Dave for flight time with only 40 minutes aloft. I sense a competition starting here amongst the K-6 boys. Then Phil flew our next trial flight visitor, George Hoare, for a single soaring flight. Alas, no photo.
Meanwhile, at the clubhouse and in the hangar, there was plenty of activity going on, too. Firstly, congratulations to Alasdair for successfully completing his much-delayed navigation exercise. However, that gave me a massive task of checking his solo endorsement, application for a BGA Gliding Certificate, Bronze endorsement, Cross Country endorsement and CAA Sailplane Pilot Licence application. Phew! Most pilots apply for these as they progress, but not our Alasdair, who us aiming for a discount by applying for everything at once. Well, he's Scottish!
Colin supervised the derigging of the club's Astir CS77. A team weighed the wings whilst Colin inspected the fuselage and tailplane. He identified a worn L'Hotellier ball, or "short-neck spigot" in GROB speak, on the elevator arm of the tailplane. A replacement was ordered.
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| The offending L'Hotellier ball will be changed |
Visitor Pat was at the club with her son, who had purchased the voucher. enjoyed two soaring flights, taking videos and pictures to remember her experience and show to her family.
Back at the launch point, it was still busy with our trainees and visitors.
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| Three decades of gliding technology on display |
In the midst of this activity, we heard that the BGA had confirmed John Allan's award of a Diamond Goal (300 km task with pre-declared turning points). Congratulations, John.
Just when Phil was looking forward to a breather after his visitors CFI, Rick arrived. He conducted Basic Inspector check flights for BIs Steve Lewis and Phil in between short flights in the K-8 made by John Smith.
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Basic Instructor Phil tucks "Bloggs" (CFI Rick) into the front seat
of the Puchacz for "Bloggs'" second-ever flight |
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| "Bloggs" (CFI Rick) struggles to remember what the mnemonic CB SIFT BEC stands for |
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| Doesn't Puchacz's new Trigraph on the fin and rudder look splendid |
Unfortunately, there was no photo today, but the Wavers' favourite 96 yro, Joey Warren flew with us again. She enjoyed a 14-minute soaring flight with Phil as part of her temporary membership, demonstrating that she is still game for a spot of adventure. In the air for the first time in his Standard Cirrus was John Osment, who soared for 20 minutes. John had owned a Standard Cirrus many years ago and remarked that he had forgotten how delightful a glider it is to fly.
As check flights became the order of the day, Sean took the opportunity to use the Duty Instructor's spare capacity to make some recency flights.
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| Sean, I can guarantee he is going to pull the bung on you. |
Our thanks go to the winch drivers who spent long stints getting the Wavers into the air and those running the tower. Without you, it just wouldn't happen.
The verdict of the Wavers: "A good day at the club with some great weather." "We seem to be back in the groove". With 32 flights made today, long may it continue.
Gavin Short
