This was the first day of the New Year for the Wednesday Wavers. Since Monday it has been snowy at the airfield.
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A beautiful sky at Monday lunchtime seen while I was bringing the glider log books up-to-date with the December's monthly flight hours and launches. This was all to change.
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The moors seen from Iron Railings Cross on the drive to the club this morning
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Getting closer. The moors to the east. Princetown radio mast is visible contrary to the forecast for a low cloud base
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The forecast was for light easterly winds, low cloud base, and sleet and snow for the most of the day caused by the warm moist air mass coming up from the south. So ground work fueled by tea and the wood burner would be the order of the day.
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A pair of pundits dressed ready for the cold outside
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But when Mike Jardine, the Duty instructor arrived he was having none of it. The upper cloudbase was at some 6,000 feet and any low cloud was not present over the airfield.
A K-13 and K-8 were withdrawn from the hangar and made ready at the west end with the winch situated at the frosty east end. This was after a lot of lying on the snowy ground pumping up tyres and clearing debris from the tail wheels. Fresh batteries were fitted mindful of the "cold soak" that they would have received over the Christmas period. Did I not say there had been snow since Monday lunchtime? The temperature had fallen to -3.5C overnight and would not exceed 1C all day. Definitely a day for thermals or padded jump suits.
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Daily Inspections underway
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The rigging area, hangar, clubhouse and MT hangar
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Some interesting clouds were forming to the north
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The glider rack and rigging area had received quite a bit of snow over the last few days
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My Standard Cirrus fuselage out of its trailer for a small job. Alas, I had not planned to fly CNN today.
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Most of the snow had been blown away from the launch point but Brentor Church was still wreathed in snow
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First up was Scratch flying from the rear seat to get back in the groove for 2025. Mike had the "big picture" seat in the front and made use of it with his camera. They made the most of their ten minutes aloft as you can see.
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The village of Mary Tavy in the snow
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A white Blackdown
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Heading east
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Into the wave with a knot or so of lift at 1,600 feet AGL
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A less snowy view to the south and the Hamoaze estuary in the distance
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Time to get set up for a circuit and land
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"Brentor Base, Foxtrot Golf Romeo, downwind, left hand"
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Andy rigged his Libelle in record time and was second to launch. He managed 12 minutes in conditions that were promising wave but not where he was. Eight knots of sink forced him to scuttle back to the runway and land promptly.
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Andy quick off the draw in getting his Libelle out and rigged.
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The launch point at the west end. Note the low level clouds caused by wave, or more probably rotor as they are so low to the ground.
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Andy, reassuringly enthusiastic after his second flight and lined up for a second launch.
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The two instructors on the field took a training flight together and then John Smith took the K-8 aloft. The ASI works correctly and he had to abandon the launch due to his speed. So he is now in date for launch failure. Make sure its noted in his log book.
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The ground crew retrieving the K-8, the winch cable and drogue chute
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As the team recovered him and the cable and drogue chute it became painfully obvious that the warm air had arrived and it started to snow. So time to put everything away. Well, we had a go.
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With the snow approaching from the south east the Duty Instructor declares an end to flying operations just as Dave turns up on the field, again (maybe he needs a better alarm clock to realise the DGS maxim - "The early bird catches the wave!")
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Then we retired to the clubhouse, stoked up the wood burner, and had lunch. However, I had a small job to do first at the east end with K-8 GDK in our multipurpose (K-13/K-8) trailer. It gave me a chance to admire the winter views and watch the winch team retrieve it back to the MT hangar.
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My view heading to the east end
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The snow approaching from the south east
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A very Bruegel scene (a Belgian artist famous for his characteristic wintry landscapes)
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These scenes were a precursor to reports mid-afternoon that Princetown had received four inches of snow.
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The view up towards Okehampton was very snowy
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It was that cold in the hangar that after lunch the next engineering project, assembling the refurbished Puchacz main wheel with new taper bearings, a fresh tyre and inner tube needed to be assembled in the warm. Note to Val; we don't normally use the club house table as a work bench but these were exceptional times...to keep our senior citizens warm and dry.
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It took three wise men (lost after Christmas?) to assemble the Puchacz main wheel with a new tyre and inner tube.
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A few other jobs were underway. The snow eased up for a short period before it started up in earnest. Those with distances to travel started heading off with the last members away from the airfield by 1400 with the snow still falling.
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The snow started again. Later it started to settle on the rigging area.
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By the look of the snowy roof the insulation in the clubhouse is good (cough!)
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Four flights. 29 minutes total flight time. Currency maintained for some. Ground equipment and gliders checked. Thanks to those who winched and ran the airfield, but didn't get a chance to fly.
Two flying days, albeit short ones, in the first week of the New Year. What a great start to 2025.
Gavin Short
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