Competition Photo's

Images taken on day2 of the competition can be found on the Tibenham Photo Album website

Images were taken of all of the competitors and tugs

World Vintage Glider Rally 2000

With thanks to Bob Sage - I have just scanned 25 photographs taken at the 2000 event ( we now have a sub Album with 63 images taken the 2000 VGC rally)- these have been added to the my Tibenham Photo Album together with images of more unusal types seen at Tibenham at other events approx 2000-2004 .
We now have over 1,500 images of gliders and aircraft taken at Tibenham

Hope these are of interest

Cracking day, but not obvious From RASP

The trouble with RASP is that it is pretty good. So when you see a day that does not look too great, you tend not to bother. The kind of mackerel pattern you see below would suggest that maybe there are loads of showers or something. Speaking for myself, I would rather an all over smooth yellow colour than the mottled red. However, a few days showing up like the day below, which have turned out to be OK (well pretty good) have led me to at least turning up now.






If you'd looked earlier in the morning, say 11am, you would think that it would be a complete non-starter in Norfolk.





However, it was 'going' from pretty much ten a.m., and those people who got out to the club were in for a treat. Ray Hart was Duty instructor, with Chris Lawrewnce providing some great flights for trial lessons, as it was great soaring weather. I wonder if we get better conversion from trial lessons to members when the lesson is on a good soaring day.

In terms of acheivements:

• Beth Redpath got a Bronze leg


• Paul Gould got his silver height

Tim Heighton and Art Kerkhof explored XC in the Janus, and Mark Wright, Steve Brownlow, Dave Munro, David Taylor all went off in single seaters. I'm pretty sure I saw one Grob 109 exploring about too.






A couple of pictures: The east coast from near 7k', just south of Norfolk. I never knew my iphone did geo-tagging either, but going on the little maps in iPhoto: it must do.






Honington, with Mildenhall & lakenheath barely visible as sun pools in background. Note time is just past six in the evening. I've never been heading away from home so late before. The showers never reached Tibenham, you could see them to the North and East coasts, and later in the West.






Finally, if you look at the cumulous cloudbase for late in the day, you can see that it does indeed promise to be good up to around 7k'. Paul G saw around 7,800'. It was well worth turning up.


Now why could we not have this weather for the Eastern Regionals.

Snetterton's New Layout

With many thanks to Phil - we had a very enjoyable flight in the G-DKDP, Grob 109, to have a look at the new Circuit at the end of March - also I was also able to get a view of our neighbours at Priory Farm and a view of the airfield looking west - soon to change with all the new buildings

Eastern Regionals 30/5

Here are a few images taken today 30/5/2011

G-AODT off for a local flight before the Gliding got started

G-BSOM DG-400

Rotax Falke from Marham helping with the tugging

Finally - winner of the task "HNC"

Many more images, as usual, can be found on the Tibenham Flikr Photo Album now nearly 1500 images all taken at Tibenham

All out

Keith

Air to Air Pictures of Tiger Moth

What is it about Tuesdays? Tues 24 May.TIB BUN BIC TIB

Two brilliant Tuesdays when I had to be at work, followed by a third, when I could skive off! What a run of exceptional weather unless you are a gardener or farmer!

Saturday 21st May began with spectacular thermals when I was tugging. I reported on the radio at least 7 knots in the Gissing area, as I regularly saw the VSI showing 1000 t0 1300 ft/min. A few listened and had a launch. I was itching to get gliding myself, so thanks Steve for doing the afternoon stint. By the time I launched it was surprisingly difficult to make progress. I take off my hat to Paul Gould for hanging on in those conditions for a Silver 5 hours!!

Rasp was already showing Tuesday 24th to be the best day for a week, and the predictions of a post cold front classic day kept on coming right up to Monday night. The wind strength was the only dampener on the optimism of a superb 500k day. So arriving at about 10 am I was unsure of the excellence of the day, but already quite late for a 500. I was really surprised to find no other glider pilots there champing at the bit for a launch. I had already resolved to offer to tug only 1 or 2 if there was no other tuggie on site. No need to worry! I was on my own.

I spent a while talking to Phil and Mick and reduced my original plan of Hereford and back to Bicester, with a downwind start to Bungay to assess the streeting strong wind.

Easy climb off launch to 3500 feet, so I set off downwind and arrived at Bungay at 3700 QNH then into wind, failing completely to find the lines of lift, so another start, this time more cautiously, arriving at Bungay at 4700 with a 20 kt wind behind me.

Then into wind. What a slow slog it was! after an hour and only at Knettishall made me decide that the task was not achievable. However, the lift slowly became more reliable and I just kept on going, joining a good street and getting to the now 5500 cloudbase west of Honington. Much better, but realised that Bicester could not be achieved by anything like the 4pm turn back time I had planned. Gransden passed at 4pm and then great progress as the wind eased to be past Milton keynes at 5 pm, having difficulty keeping below the 5500 airway, and so arriving at Bicester at 5.17.

Lovely view East, but no photo of Bicester as it was in evening shadow!

I was thinking that a technical or real landout was inevitable, but on the downwind home journey, the thermals just got bigger and smoother, with regular 4 or 5kts. No need to get to cloudbase, but I indulged myself at St Neots at 6pm with a climb to just over 6000.

What a brilliantly clear afternoon! From just after Bicester the Lion at Dunstable, MK of course, and other towns like Northampton were clear. I reckon at least 60 NM visibility. What a blast! I only saw one other glider nearby between Bicester and Gransden, and then none at all. Yet the thermals kept on going, now with an Australian or South African look to them, a long way apart, no streets, and over 6200 feet bases. Last one was at 6.30 3 to 6 knots at Newmarket and home to upset the wind buggies using our runways.

Turned out to be half a day of superlatives, though the Dunstable and Hus Bos boys had a whole classic day with a 750 by Robin May in his EB28 starship and seven 500s, notably 2 in ASW20s in 15 m mode.

Where were the rest of you?? Not everyone had to work!

Sorry, I could not get the blogger to put the photos in the right place.

Anyway the top one is looking at the Dunstable lion from about Buckingham. Next Arrival back at ten to 7.

The third is Bungay and the coast.

Ladder entry is here:

http://www.bgaladder.co.uk/dscore.asp?FlightID=31512

Peter

Soaring PNA - cheap price alert

I walked into PC world last week, and picked up a Navman Mio M400 for around £57. I just mention it here, as I think that they are probably selling them out, as they are no longer on the web site. It is cheaper than I have seen it anywhere online (typically over £70). The other ones they do sell are the Navman Mio M475 for £80. I am not sure if it is effectively the same model with TMC traffic device actually included.

It's a 4.3" PNA which can be cracked to use LK800, XCSoar or Seeyou Mobile on it's built in GPS.

Both XCSoar and LK8000 specifically target the device.

There is a review of it compared to various devices on the postfrontal (LK8000 support) forum here:
MIO M400 PNA, pictures compared with other units, which should give you a clue of other devices to consider.

It has serial port capability (in common with many other PNAs), so you can hook it up to your FLARM (to see where everyone else is & how well they are climbing, unless in stealth mode) or otherwise hook it up to a glide computer vario, e.g. LX 16xx, CAI 302) for real-time wind calculation, even in cruise.

I have not fiddled with my M400 yet, as I spent the weekend getting FLARM talking to my HP 314. It works a treat. I used a line level converter from glidertools.com, here. Note that their picture shows a Mio M400. A converter is required to get USB working at normal RS232 voltages. I will in due course get my M400 working too.

The converter is compatible with Oudie and Wayteq too.

IMI also make a converter, here. I have not tried it, but I found them very good to deal with when I got the new glider tow-bar.

Ruby Tuesday

As in one comes along every x years.

Soarable from 9.50 till 17.30.

For once, the best cloudbase was East Anglia, up to around 6K' as far NE as Fakenham, less than 4K' SW of Stony Stratford.

Up to 6K' over Tibenham.

Phil Morgan was soaring his G109 up to 5K'. 4 engine units for around 2 and a half hours soaring.

DT, JRK, PW, DM all went XC.

Berkeley got his 5 hrs. Well done Berkeley!

Pictures for "What a Day"

What a day!

A poor turnout yesterday, even for a bank holiday, but what a day! The forecast blue certainly was not going to happen but the 25kt wind did. A number of us rigged or prepared to fly. Tim and Chris in the Janus, Paul G. in the Cirrus, Steve B in 20, David in Y11, Pete in BSOM and this writer in FGP. One club two-seater was kept busy all day, landing well after everyone else had finished.

All of us had more than two hours of fun and frolics with some of us completing our declared tasks. The sky was boiling in parts, but that wind, wow! Thanks to Andy for running the day and to the busy tug pilots (Steve and Steve).

Great fun. More please.

Busy Easter Saturday: BGA Course, Glider swap, Met as promised

It was a very busy day at Tibenham today, with a big turn-out.

A week-long instructors course has started for the BGA, run by Dave Munroe. Most of their morning was taken up with class activities, but everyone was out on the field in the afternoon.

As the course involves spin excercises, the temporary swap of our Grob 103, with a Puchacz from Rattlesden was arranged.

Here is T12 getting a clean & wax from junior members:

And here the chairman returns triumphant with the Puchacz. Note that the sky is still blue around lunch-time.

For once the met was pretty much right, with RASP showing Cu developing to the West of Tib, and the BBC predicting showers somewhere between Thetford and Cambridge.

From about 1300 BST, Cu were visible over Attleborough & Wymondham. If you were lucky, you could get just under 3K' in the blue over TIB. If you could reach WYM, then it was easy to get to 5K' under the clouds. A big shower cell did indeed develop over Lakenheath & Thetford. On the other side of it, max climbs were over 7K'. Here is Mildenhall, looking East, from about that height. The sky to the West went blue about 10K East of Ely.

South of Bury was still classic fair weather Cu, but the big shower cell stayed east of TIB all afternoon. Here it is from slightly north-east of Honington, looking NW.

... and finally from the ground (Runway 33, looking NW), around 1630. It never did reach Tibenham.

Here is the UK visible sat pic. at 1800. Big cloud over Thetford!

So wrong, in so many ways

Looks like my ploy to confuse the weather gods by getting the date wrong for Monday failed.
There was a 40 minute soaring window, as the sky went from blue to 8/8.
This did not stop Mick Hughes, from running his day course for two members.
There was even a period late afternoon, where it seemed to be soarable, despite 8/8 cover, as the clouds thinned.
Better luck next time....


Maybe even this sunday (3rd April). Look at this RASP picture for 1300 on Sun (84 hrs out)... sorry I could not help myself. N.B. the beeb currently shows sunday as being 8/8 cover with drizzle all day.

Got a pass for Monday 27th March?

This could be a pretty good day in East Anglia ! I hope I don't jinx it by pointing it out.

Here are some pictures from RASP for tomorrow:

Firstly, here is the updraft at the best part of the day. It starts to look pretty soarable from 11.30.

But at 1500 (1600 BST) in the day it is still looking good too!

Admittedly cloudbase is highest towards the end of the day, but from 1200z, it will be above 3K'.

Could this be on? (option to drop MCH, if running behind schedule - running out of day).

Here's another version, maybe staying under the higher CB more.

19th Mar, Finally the start of the season?

Quite a busy day, with all three twin-seaters out, and one astir.

It got thermic shortly after midday - enough for people to stay up.

It stayed blue all day, with TOC rising from around 3,000' to around 3,600'.

Thermals stopped shortly after 1630. It looks like the season has started.

Saturday 12 March

Congratulations to Kevin Holdsworth and Josh Brownlow for passing their Bronze examination written papers today and thanks to Steve Brownlow for getting the happy candidates up to scratch.

Sunday 27th Feb

Managed to get down to the airfield on Sunday - all three of the club two seaters were in action - and our new tug was kept busy. Flying was off R/W 33 - several flights over 3/4 hour were acheived



With thanks to Phil I enjoyed a couple of long circuits off the winch.

As the sky cleared and the winds dropped - the based Fokker Tri-Plane took off on a sortie

Remember the Tibenham Photo Album is available on line - over 1300 images taken at Tibenham with over 100,000 hits in just 1 year