The day started with Rivar Hill in a big blue hole with no one rushing to take the first flight. Bob B declared that it must be working and took the K8 away for an hour to prove it. Everyone who flew (with one exception) enjoyed at least one soaring flight but had to contend with lumpy air and a lot of drift. Alan H set off to exercise his new XC qualification to get his silver. Having gone to Marlborough and struggled back to Rivar Hill he decided to abandon carrying on to Lasham. Keith J and I had a memorable flight with an excellent view of the crop circle (serpent) near the gibbet and then joined by lots of shinny, big-winged gliders south side of Kintbury. We needed pretty much all the 2,500' we had to make it back to the airfield.
Sunday 22nd August
Arrived to find the field arready set-up by the insomniacs but we then sat around as no one keen to just fly circuits. With the appearance of the days first TL we started flying. It soon became apparent that the wind hadn't read the weather forecast so it was change end time. Flights were rather short until 14:00 when Chris B stayed airborne for an hour. All three of our 2-seaters were kept busy with 2 TL's, 2 half day courses, visitors from Shennington and Uphavon and friends of members. As the day progressed the flying got better, higest climb I heard of was to 4,800. The C team were certainly kept busy.
The Thermal is to your left Pete
Sunday 14th August
Upon seeing that the Puchacz was staying up and even climbing on its first launch of the day Carol and I set ourselves Nympsfield-Newbury as our task. With the westerly breeze showing 20kts at height and with only a 2600ft cloudbase we set off on track. Lift was good in places but some clouds just were not playing ball and lured us into long glides in search of lift. We spent quite some time over Swindon just trying to stay airborne but as we were no longer within gliding range of Rivar pressed on.
It soon became clear that we would not reach Nympsfield so wimped out and landed at Aston Down instead.
Within an hour or so the sky improved and it looked like the cloudbase was rising significantly so after refueling with a nice cup of tea we took a launch to test it out. Straight off the wire we hit a stonking thermal which took us up to cloudbase at 4500ft over the airfield so we headed back to Rivar. Two or three thermals later we were crossing the clubhouse at 120kts so no need for the retreive crew..............yahooo!Phil
Saturday 13 August
With 5 members (4 of whom were instructors) and a low cloud base it did not bode well. However, Tim (duty instructor) had a plan - drink tea. James Holland, and guest, appeared so we got the toys out (including Colin spotting a problem with the winch and the bus winch went into service). Tim took the Roundout bus to the launch point - time for tea (and Colin donned his overalls to work on the winch). First launch ran into cloud at 1250. A few launches later James resolo'd (after a 13 year gap). We had just about run out of folks wanting to fly when John T appeared so we carried on flying. When the Puchacz was heading for the hangar Adam Cumberlege appeared so it went back online. For those who don't know Adam he was a member many moons ago before he moved from Vernham Dean to Auckland. He's a member of the Auckland Gliding Club and these days flys an ASW-20. This was the first time he'd flown a Puchacz and put it through its paces - good to see him again.
Altough the longest flight of the day was only 11 minutes we had a worthwhile day (exceptionally good vis) and clocked up 24 launches.
Altough the longest flight of the day was only 11 minutes we had a worthwhile day (exceptionally good vis) and clocked up 24 launches.
Pile of plates (Wed 10th Aug)
It wasn't a grest soaring day on Wednesday, with a rther stiff southwesterly breeze. But there was a nice collection of wave clouds, including this nice "pile of plates" (altocumulus lenticularis).
Task Week Day 3
Initially the weather looked good for a few 50k attempts but things soon changed for the worse.
Never the less James Hunneman in the Pirat and Rob Jarvis in the Cirrus took the bait and soon set off, conditions were not that brilliant but they pressed on. Rob decided that it was just too hard so quite rightly came back but James had got too far away to safely get back so pushed on but eventually the sink won the day and James had to pick a field.
The stubble field that James landed in was perfect apart from one thing.............it had just been spread with manure.
Still being an ex glider pilot the farmer was happy for James to be there and complemented him on his field selection. The condition of the field has prompted us to add something to the field check list.
Size, slope, shape, stock, surface, shite!
Never the less James Hunneman in the Pirat and Rob Jarvis in the Cirrus took the bait and soon set off, conditions were not that brilliant but they pressed on. Rob decided that it was just too hard so quite rightly came back but James had got too far away to safely get back so pushed on but eventually the sink won the day and James had to pick a field.
The stubble field that James landed in was perfect apart from one thing.............it had just been spread with manure.
Still being an ex glider pilot the farmer was happy for James to be there and complemented him on his field selection. The condition of the field has prompted us to add something to the field check list.
Size, slope, shape, stock, surface, shite!
Task Week Day 2
After yesterdays multiple flights today's conditions were no where near as good but that didn't mean that we did not go XC. Colin very kindly just flew a circuit in the LS3 and then let me have a go as Carol and Geoff Seaman had the Janus. Jim launched first having loaded the Nimbus up with 4 barrels of water and set off like a scalded cat in the direction of Newbury. Carol and Geoff kindly waited for me join them after I had spent about 10 minutes at 800ft over Shalbourne before climbing away. Bullington Cross was supposed to be our first TP but poor conditions around Whitchurch made me turn back and head back towards the club. Carol made the TP and headed onwards in the direction of Didcot finally turning Oxford South and enjoying(?) a marginal final glide back.
Jim and I made it just past Didcot before deteriorating conditions made us turn back. With Jim calling out where the good lift was under a very dark street I managed to get back to Rivar.
Jim and I made it just past Didcot before deteriorating conditions made us turn back. With Jim calling out where the good lift was under a very dark street I managed to get back to Rivar.
Task week day 1
The week started off well with the Nimbus. Ls3 and Janus all getting round multiple 100k+ flights. Jim set off for RIV, LA5, DID, RIV with Colin, Carol and I in hot pursuit. Initially climbs to over 4000ft were common but approaching Basingstoke it went blue all the way to LAS and beyond. Loads of gliders waiting for a launch but not many getting away. A run in the blue out to LAS and back to Basingstoke took us down to 2000ft with organised thermals slightly lacking.
Over Aldermaston we climbed to 5000ft and headed off to DID which was reached reasonably quickly. The return leg to RIV as filled with sink and despite being 1000ft over glide we still found ourselves at 1500ft over Hungerford looking level with the airfield. Not enough height for a circuit so straight in for 127K :-)
A quick rest then off again, a stonking climb straight off the launch took us to 5000ft so a quick run to SNO, WAN, KSB, RIV was declared for 107k. Over KSB we climbed to 6600ft just to be sure we did not repeat the previous flight and headed back to RIV which we reached still at 4000ft.
Not sure where the others went for their second flight so will have to update later.
Lets see what today brings.
Phil
Jenny from the block (weekend of 30/31 July)
on Saturday Richard announced his retirement from gliding, after all once you have flown with a celebrity as famous as J-Lo what else can you achieve... (for our older members she is a popular music recording artist often found on the wireless dial somewhere between Radio 3 and classic FM).
Meanwhile, setting off under overcast skys I headed out to the north east to find brighter conditions and good, if not a little low thermals. A couple of laps up and down the country to Buckingham (in Buckinghamshire, if you don't know where that is) gave me a flight of 285km. I even managed to find Winslow...
Under the overcast skies at home much soaring was still taking place.
Sunday rounded off a soarable weekend, albeit a little blue and windy. Colin managed to find "The Wave" just north of the ridge and worked it for a while. Others contented themselves with thermals, not least Phil flying about a 1000 trial lessons - all went home happy! The challenging conditions meant we welcomed a couple of outlandees from Bicester.
(PS Richard hasnt really retired, apparently the J Lo in the log was a different one, oh well!)
Meanwhile, setting off under overcast skys I headed out to the north east to find brighter conditions and good, if not a little low thermals. A couple of laps up and down the country to Buckingham (in Buckinghamshire, if you don't know where that is) gave me a flight of 285km. I even managed to find Winslow...
Under the overcast skies at home much soaring was still taking place.
Sunday rounded off a soarable weekend, albeit a little blue and windy. Colin managed to find "The Wave" just north of the ridge and worked it for a while. Others contented themselves with thermals, not least Phil flying about a 1000 trial lessons - all went home happy! The challenging conditions meant we welcomed a couple of outlandees from Bicester.
(PS Richard hasnt really retired, apparently the J Lo in the log was a different one, oh well!)
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