The Week
We had a really great week, probably one of the best I have been
involved in. Everyone got on well and things ran very smoothly thanks to George
& Ken tugging and Anna & Angus doing great work as Duty Pilots. The
weather also co-operated to provide soaring every day apart from Friday. On
Tuesday we did 24 launches and over 75 hours of flying! On Thursday we
did 27 launches and, if you ignore Steve Rae's aerobatics training and
subsequent exam flight (which he passed - well done Steve) the average flight
time was over 2 hours per flight.
The only problem we had was the demise of the bus. As usual Ken Marston got stuck in with help from Angus
Sheldon & Trevor Gorley (visitor) who went well beyond the
call of duty by probably spending more time under the bus than in the air.
Eventually it was thought that the fault was diagnosed and the faulty part
removed. A replacement is on order which should, hopefully, arrive arrive this
week allowing the bus to be fixed shortly.
Andy Bardgett (Instructor)
Devon & Somerset GC Expedition to Milfield
Reproduced from DSGC News with kind permission from DSGC
http://devonsomersetgc.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/milfield-expedition-borders-gliding-club.html
After a painless, but fairly tedious 400mile drive, OL and crew arrived at Borders Gliding Club at Milfield on Saturday afternoon , joining in with a flying week with visitors from Saltby.
Weather was not very inspiring on Sunday, but following a daily briefing, Pete had a site check with Andy with wave assisted thermals and wave broken thermals but no wave.
Site Check in the Duo
Tuesday's forecast was much better with RASP forecasting wave in the valley. We found the wave straight off tow and climbed to 6000ft, but it didn't go any higher, we could have stayed there all day, in the cumulus congestus, later in the day, proper lenticulars formed but again only to 6000ft.
Cumulus Wave
Wednesday produced some wave in the morning but a few locals (brave people) got to 8000ft before getting cut off with low cloud with some exciting final glides from 15km downwind under 2000ft base. Cloud cleared after lunch and there were launches to go ridge soaring but it wasn't really doing that either.
Thursday was the best day of the week, with a busy launch point from early on, with strong thermals in the valley, which turned out to be wave induced. After a good low point of 1500ft, they went smooth at 3000ft and we climbed to 6000ft just above cloud tops, after exploring a little, we managed to drop out the bottom and then had to spend some time in the broken themals climbing up again. By then the wave had established nicely in the blue and after climbing to 7000ft we pushed forward into the Primary over The Cheviot and carried on climbing to just over 10000ft. We ended the flight with a sightseeing trip to the seaside over Lindisfarne passing three blue bars on the way back.
Holy Island
Borders Gliding Club - Milfield
.jpg)
Jill & Pete Harmer
