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!)
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