Saturday 9th June, Lasham Regionals

Well the Lasham comp is now over. Some of the pilots flew 2 of the 9 days while us mortals flew only 1 day, yesterday.

I got up early about 05:30, looked out of the window to see Wave clouds all over the place. Drat I thought, it was sure to muck up any thermal activity.

We set our sailplanes on the grid, got a task; (the A group) Lasham, Midhurst, Calne, Didcot and back to Lasham.

Midhurst wasn’t too bad but turning back was a hard long slog and getting back near Lasham at 1200 QFE made me magnetise towards the landing strip to the east of the field.

As it happened I scraped away and was joined by many other gliders having similar ‘niggles’.

I gathered up my thoughts and concentrated on getting towards Calne. First I got to Kingsclere Mast, found another weak thermal and got a little higher leaving the mast behind, punching forward I found another weak climb and punched forward leaving the Kingsclere mast behind. Groundhog Day came to mind but on the third attempt I got to Rivar where I had another low save.

A change of direction and tempo was called for so slowing a little I took a more conservative course and made my way towards Marlborough. Unfortunately I scraped away and eventually landed at Liddington. I’ve drove past that part of the world many times and since gliding I’ve always thought it would be nice to fly the small ridge there in a westerly. Well it’s not, Ok the ridge works but I didn’t want to be that low waiting for a thermal to pick me up. Doesn’t always work.

I landed, headed towards the farm, made my apologies and was greeted by very friendly farm staff at the stables.

I got retrieved by my friend Steve and we were back at Lasham by 19:30.

A great day but many landouts.