Top Fun At Tibenham 4th – 8th August

Thanks to those who took part. It was unfortunate that we managed to pick a week with such poor weather across the whole of the UK - as the results from the comps that ran at Lasham, Gransden, Honington and Nymsfield reflect. However, at Tibenham we probably got the best of a bad lot and we did fly on 4 out of 5 days and went soaring on 3 of them, so we did manage to squeeze some fun flying out of the week!

Monday 4th
It took a while to get going, but the afternoon was soarable, if a little challenging. During the morning we discussed final glides and set a task, but the strong winds prevented us achieving any significant distance. Cloudbase went up to over 4000feet and the trick was to watch the rapidly changing weather and be in the right place at the right time, rather than stay near to base. Longest flight: 3 hours.

Tuesday 5th
Poor weather. No flying. A good day to visit St.George's whisky distillery at East Harling!

Wednesday 6th
Not soarable. Club flying took place and Mick provided instruction for those who needed it.

Thursday 7th
The afternoon provided a short soaring window before the heavy showers and approaching thunderstorms curtailed flying for the day. Mike Bean inspired us with his thermalling in the Falke and Mike Lindsey and I both launched and managed to soar away off the wire. Longest flight: 1hr 10min.


Friday 8th
This morning the Northerly winds and grey skies looked uninspiring so we discussed various aspects of soaring, advantages of carrying water ballast, etc. However, after lunch weak thermals started to pop and gave us a couple of hours of usable weather. JRK and Adrian flew the G103 and I bimbled off to Norwich and Bungay. Later Harley flew with Mick. Longest flight: 1hr 45.

Epilogue;
Sunday 11th was very blustery and irregular with thermals being broken or enhanced by sheer wave. 30kt winds at altitude made it difficult to go anywhere but downwind! Around 4pm the cloudbase reached nearly 5000’ QFE. Most folks managed to get some soaring. Definitely a challenge but fun all the same. Longest flight: 2hr 43min.

Lesson of the week: Believe in yourself, not the BBC weather forecast!!!

Let’s hope we get better weather next time.

Ian Atherton.