Twice around in late afternoon.

Saturday April 25 TIB-DIS-PIC-NOE-TIB
With the DG back on line and two short flights made in April, I was cursing missing the good weather found by John and Ray earlier in April, due to ongoing building work at my place and running the business in hard times, but Saturday looked possible, depending on which forecast was correct, either before or after the predicted weak cold front. Rain in the West.
Mid morning rigged with help of Mark, whose comment " Where is everyone?" was answered by me, "We are here, let's get rigged!" to forestall him getting stuck into a late breakfast from Delia.
Some short local soaring with weak conditions was going on, but as I finished fettling I could see the 7 to 8 eighths cloud which had rolled in from the South beginning to thin behind, so I decided that it must be a very weak cold front indeed. (A strong cold front is more common at this time of the year, which normally consists of towering walls of cloud, rain and often thunder for less than an hour, followed by bright, crisp cool air. Normally good soaring conditions, but often unstable with smaller localised showers with snow above 2000 feet........ good fun!)
Clearance of overcast took another half hour or more, but eventually I was up into unstable air but disappointingly low cloudbase at 3000 feet with only Norman in 20 for company, plus the occasional 2 seater. I messed about locally for over an hour, noticing that the cloud base was rising, even though I did not get near it due to rejecting weak climbs often. Of course, this was a very weak front, so the whole thing was very mixed up and the new airmass was slow to become its pure self. Decision was to start as soon as I could do so at 1000m, so with a climb at last to 3800 feet, I burned the height a bit and made a start at 14.53. I was far too cautious as it panned out, as the conditions improved rapidly, so that by the time I was thermalling close to Watton and watching their cadets launching, the cloudbase was almost 5000 feet and I found my vario shouting "6 knots!!" So from then on, a fast run with a wide detour away from Costessey, I was round in 1 hour 21 min.
This was too good to waste, so I thought another lap was in order, but unfortunately I did not get away from my finish height and relaunched(thank you Iron Thermal) and restarted at 3330 feet at 16.37. Faster first two turnpoints, but then the sky was beginning to clear of clouds and the brisk 15 knot wind was increasing. At Norwich East, I could smell the sewage but did not expect to get back, so messed about trying to get enough height from Thorpe Business Park for final glide. I failed and set off directly upwind to Tib, expecting not to make it. However, due to luck and it being directly into wind, I found enough reduced sink in the blue street that I did manage to make a competition finish, unobserved, as all the gliders were away and everyone was in the bar. 1 hr 37. Thanks Dave for helping to derig.
So, a very good afternoon's flying! 2 complete laps of the triangle and my fist ladder entry of the year.
Lesson learned: do not be impatient. If I had started 30 mins later and just done the one lap, I could easily have increased my 86 kph by another 10. Ray still leads the President's Triangle mini comp.

Please put all your flights away from Tib on the National ladder. This then forms the club ladder for NGC and all flights posted with logger files are counted towards the ladder trophy. Current holder is Tom Smith.
See it on the BGA ladder:
http://www.bgaladder.co.uk/DispLadder.asp?Season=2009&ClubID=NGC&Ladder=O&PageSize=9999&ExComps=&Log=Y

Peter

(PICture is PIC with its new thermal generating wind turbines!)

Best flight yet

To go or not to go, that is the question. Whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and glides of a poor day or to stay at home and do something useful!

I was up at the crack of dawn to check RASP and the other forecasts. We were still in the grips of the stable high pressure air that has dominated for quite some time but there was a cold front due to pass though during the day which might change things. Anyway, I decided to stay at home and to try to finish off my kitchen worktops. I was keeping half an eye on the weather as I was interested to see if the cold front would make much difference. By lunchtime I had pretty much forgotten about it all when I noticed a tiny cumulus cloud through the window. 'Oh my god,' I said out loud. Poor Robyn thought I had just discovered something terrible in one of the cupboards. 'I've got to go,' I said. She now understood exactly what I meant!

I got to the airfield at about 1:30 and put my name on the list. People were just managing to stay up. There were thermals around but they were pretty tight and disorganised due to the relatively stiff Southerly wind. The K21 was free so I took a winch launch with Jan due to the fact that I was still getting back into it after a long layoff. We found a little lift but were back on the ground fairly shortly. The remnants of the front were starting to clear and it was all beginning to look rather promising. I had a feeling this was going to be a good chance for me to get a decent flight in. Timing seems to be everything in gliding and my turn in the Astir came round just about perfect. I got about 1350' from the winch and pushed South into the wind hoping to pick up some lift. It's a great feeling flying into lift, especially off the winch when conditions look good. So I was off, right up to 3000'. I have flown on days with reasonable lift but never anything as good as this. It just seemed to be getting better and better with the cloud base eventually reaching 5000' plus. For the first time I had the feeling it could actually be possible to go somewhere by flying from thermal to thermal. Not that I did go anywhere, but I'm sure I could have. After what seemed like ages I radioed down to see how long I had been up. Jenny told me 50 minutes and that there wasn't anyone else waiting for the glider. X-ray 19 told me to stay up for at least an hour and ten to get a bronze leg. At the time I thought this was Ray Hart flying Jenny's ASW 19 but I now think it was John R K. What he didn't tell me at the time was that if I had stayed up for 2 hours I could have got something towards my cross country endorsement. Anyway I decided I would just stay up there until someone told me to come down. The air was crystal clear by now and the view was stunning. It's just amazing how quickly things can change when a different air mass comes through. There was lift everywhere and I really felt like a proper glider pilot. Inevitably that call eventually came so I pulled the air brakes and was on the ground in about 10 minutes. I did a rubbish landing. Ray said the third one was OK!. There was an hour and thirty nine in the log book, which was by far my best and longest flight so far. I felt so calm and happy, having achieved that magical combination of a free glider, and perfect conditions.

When I got home I looked up the satellite pictures of the day (see below). You can clearly see the cold front pushing away the hazy high pressure air and replacing it with clear unstable air which immediately started to boil.


8am

12am

4pm

That's more like it!

As I said "always make a declaration".

Will on duty, and as the morning progressed more pilots appeared. Having already done the monthly check on the winch, once again the ASW19 was rigged. A few others had done similarly: Ray; Paul W. ; Barry and Ben; Mark (the CFI); Des and Dave; Phil H; Phil S plus others I am sure I missed. A later start than planned, the sky took a while to get going, but Ray and I were off to christen the new version of The President's Triangle (TIB-DIS-PIC-NOE-TIB). Cunningly devised to be over 100km, away from the western stub projection of Norwich International Airport but close enough to remind them we have the right to be here (although we do live in harmony).
At about 14.07 I took a winch launch, and then again 10 minutes later, connecting this time. Ray was off first time and, given his speed had probably finished before I got to 3000'. I got round pretty briskly and took a thermal before finishing just to extend the flight time!
Great views over the city and a splendid inauguration. On landing a tired looking Ass Cat (Jan)asked if I would mind taking a trial. 16.30 and the sky was dying quickly but the trial had a great 30 minute flight. I derigged and set off for the committee meeting, a glorious end to a glorious day!
Art; you have to be in a glider by 14.00 if you are going to get that silver height, never mind the Tiger Moth. They don't need thermals (noisy, smelly, dirty, engined things!)

Turned out nice again...

The morning started clearer than yesterday with hopes from RASP of thermals up to 5000ft. Will ran the day, with myself, JRK and Ben Magnani flying the trial lessons. After a runway change the soaring started around midday.

The Astir N12 returned back into service after its C of A and Bob Grieve test flew it ready for George Backowski to completed his silver height - well done George (apparantly he's never bothered claiming it).

Paul Wilkinson finished his BI acceptance flights with Mark and is now ready to join the roster - well done Capt Wilko.

When the K13 was returned to Will a number of AFRs and checks were completed, spinning being the theme of the day

Many gliders were rigged on such a good forecast, and tasks planned. Tasks seemed to be of the order of 100-150km as the weather appeared to be locally good, thermal strength between 3-5knts and cloudbase reported over 5000 at times. However the top cover spoiled the day around 4pm.

Those going places included Ray Hart (doing the presidents triangle in just over an hour), Dave Taylor, Des O'Brien, Ben M, Barry Marcham, JRK, Tom Smith, Phil Hayward, Mark Wright and probably a few others - it was quite busy. Dont forget to put your flights/traces on the ladder!

I had originally planned to come and fly the Astir as my glider is already over in Wales, but I didn't managed to get into the Astir until well after the sky had collapsed, with a fantastic 9 minute flight! Never mind, I did do over 2 hours instructing in lovely soaring conditions and it was great to see so many club members out.