Dartmoor Gliding News - Saturday 2nd August 2025

There are frontal systems approaching but not due until this evening. In fact the F215 ( Aviation Significant Weather Chart from the Met Office ) showed only 30km visibility with occasional hill fog. I cannot remember the last time I saw a forecast this quiet. RASP was it's usual optimistic self,  Winds would be light from the NW backing westerly later. Looking out the window there was significant overcast which would need to clear to get today's thermals underway.

We welcomed Rosalind Down who joined us for a One Day Course. Early on Rosalind was able to experience plenty on soaring and  had the chance to help at the launchpoint. A visit to the winch completed the Course.

Rosalind ready to her first flight

Always time for a little socialising

Malcom explaining the winch operation

The view from the winch

A relaxed end to the day

As the day progressed the soaring conditions steadily improved. At 11am it was a desperate struggle to stay airborne. By 12pm it was possible, with care, to scratch up to cloudbase. After 1.30pm  it was game on and by mid afternoon it was 6 knot cores to 3,500 ft cloudbases. This very much sounds like a typical mid summer day to me.

There was quite a few solo pilots around today. The longest flight of the day was by John Allan who was aloft for 3hrs 48 in his Mini Nimbus. John was attempting a 300km triangle but conditions over Dorset was very over developed and led to the task being abandoned at Crewkerne for a total distance of 220km. Here is John's notes and photos from the day.

Forecast seems as if a 300Km task might be on the cards, but I reckoned I'd need to have launched by 1100hrs, as otherwise I wouldn't make it back before the day died across the Exe Valley. As I launched at 1200, and then had a weak link break, but straight into a weak thermal. It took rather a long time to scratch away to cloud base. I set off thinking I'd have a go at my first TP, and maybe go round Dartmoor, but then it seemed to be very good, so headed eastwards. It got pretty overcast with a lot of over development past Chard, and decided with 200Km to go, and my guestimate of 50KM/h, meaning at least 4hrs left, to just do one more turn point, and save 2 hrs, this which happened to be Crewkerne, so I'd (hopefully) make it home again before things died off.

Exmoor and the Bristol Channel, just near Bampton.

Looks like a long way home -
looking back along the south coast with Torbay in the distance.

Seaton on the south coast.

Nearly home, Fernworthy Reservoir and Dartmoor from around Chagford.

Other notable flights saw Andy clock up 2hr28 in his Ventus ( does it count if he used his engine to do the initial climb out ), Adam Hoskin at 1hr38 in his brightly coloured K6CR and Malcolm 1hr18 spent mostly out at Roadford.

Adam  and Brightly coloured K6CR and ...

... off he goes

Malcolm's view of Roadford.

Jamie's view south over Tavistock from the K8

A great day.

Steve

Dartmoor Gliding News - Wednesday 30th July 2025

An overly optimistic forecast of 4 stars with cloud base at over 3200 feet above the airfield resulted in a morning of a lot of low cloud. The weather check flight discovered cloud at 1000 feet so Harvey Hunt and David Osment found themselves doing launch failure practice with Mike Jardine. Mike Bennett decided to have a go in the K8 but reported that cloud base was not much better and no soaring conditions yet. Returning to the airfield with Mike Bennett was Mark Hughes who belonged to the club in the 1980’s but hadn’t been back since about 1995. He flew with Phil Hardwick (Duty BI) in the Puchacz and thoroughly enjoyed his time back with us.

At this point conditions improved and looked more promising so Malcolm Wilton-Jones  took a flight in the twin Astir and managed 31 mins so the solo pilots duly lined up to at the launch point.

The queue forms.

Mike Jardine worked through the flying list, next up was Ray Staines.

Drop checks releasing under tension.

Ray and Mike getting ready to go.

The conditions improved with the cloud base slowly rising for a while, Jamie reported 1650 feet but on my first flight a little later I found cloud base had come down to 1500 but as the flight went on it came down to 1350 so not great. Around 1400 conditions improved with cloud base around 2000 feet and if you took off at the right time you could get away for a local soaring flight  but  it was a bit pot luck with many flights being limited to less than 10 mins.

Sharing a thermal with the twin Astir.

Only 6 flights out of the 34 were more than 30 mins, the best flights were Andy Davey, managing 2 hrs and 11 mins in his Ventus, Malcolm and Roger Spall managed 1 hour, I managed 49 mins in my Open Cirrus and Mike Jardine with David Osment managed 46 mins in a K13.

Many thanks to Mike Bennett, John Allan and John Smith who did all the winching and to Alison Young who drove the retrieve for 90% of the day. Whilst a disappointing day we did all fly and everyone went home happy.

Steve Fletcher