Portmoak Expedition

Mick Hughes has taken the K21 and a bunch of club members including Paul Woodcock, Jenny Novak, Mike Crook, Phil Hayward and Don Johnson to sample the delights of Scottish whisky, I mean countryside!, as they start their week expedition to Portmoak.

Read how they got on on our NGC Exped blog http://ngcexpeds.blogspot.com/

The NGC XC Ladder – Best Year Ever!!! (Updated)

Well done and thanks to all those who contributed to the club ladder in 2009.

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There were 115 entries on the 2009 Norfolk GC Ladder totalling an impressive 18021.7km between 21 pilots, making an average task distance of 157km per entry. This makes it our most successful year ever for ladder entries with over twice as many as last year.
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Pete Ryland flew the highest number of XC Kms totalling 3494.4 in 19 flights, whilst Ian Atherton accumulated a total of 2918.3km, also with 19 entries, to give him second place on the 'Distance Ladder'. Tom Smith was third with 2055.9km over only 8 entries giving him the furthest average distance on the ladder of 257km!
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The furthest distance in one flight was Tom Smith's 756.7km flight, which is featured in the recent S&G and looks likely to give him the BGA Wakefield Trophy for the longest handicapped distance of 2009.

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Additionally, the NGC Ladder also recorded:
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1 x 500km+ flight By Tim Davies at 522.3km, for Diamond Distance.
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1 x 400km+ flight by Ian Atherton at 458.2km.
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7 x 300km+ flights, including 2 first 300km Diamond Goal flights by James Francis and Simon Urry.
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19 x 200-299km flights.
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53 x 100-199km flights.
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33 x sub-100km flights including a number first XC flights, 2-seat training flights, Silver Distance and BGA 100km Diploma attempts.

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Of course, these are only a fraction of the XC flights achieved by NGC pilots this season. As well as letting other pilots see what they missed(!) the records also help to provide evidence when fighting our corner against airspace proposals, etc. - so why not add your flights in the future?

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Thanks to Pete Ryland for his work as club steward - please contact him soon if you think you have a claim on a club trophy before the annual dinner.

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See more at;
http://tinyurl.com/y8cuhsw
http://www.bgaladder.co.uk/INDEX.ASP
http://www.bgaladder.co.uk/BGAAwards.asp?Year=2009

See how NGC compares to other ladders at;

http://www.bgaladder.co.uk/summary.asp?Season=2009

Cross Country in the K21!

A most un-expected and fun cross country flight on a Friday afternoon, with Will Day as P1. Declared President's Triangle, with NOE first.

After turning Norwich East, we were back at 3,500' and were able to enjoy our picnic sandwiches in the sun. We soon had to abandon Pickenham as the thermals were not as reliable or regular as they looked, so after the first turning point, went towards Diss, abandoning Diss about 3/4 of the way there as it had gone blue with thermals difficult to find.

Anyone interested can view the flight on the NGC ladder.

Our overall speed was rather on the low side, but optimistic Will says:

"... at 26.38kph .. keep up boys!! At least we have won the day for NGC!

Challenging Skies

Soarable for much of the day with most folks getting in some local soaring. Several club and private gliders were out with the longest flight achieving 3hrs 35mins. Most made the best of what was probably one the last few decent thermal soaring days of the season. However, limited cloudbase at TIB (2500ft slowly rising to 3000ft) and strong winds with wind-broken thermals made XC somewhat of a challenge.

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With winds of 030/25kts going upwind to Norwich meant struggling into a markedly descending cloudbase as well as the headwind. I eventually managed to to turn NWI TP after a monumental struggle and several aborted attempts, and despite the tailwind on the way back was picking fields until I hooked into a decent climb at Tacolneston which allowed me to turn Diss and get back to TIB. This took 2 hours, but by now things were improving and seeing Will in T65 release from tow into good lift inspired me and I joined him in a climb to 3000. This was more like it. Off to NWI for a second time and a much more comfortable downwind leg that saw me get quickly all the way to Great Ashfield. Here cloudbase was higher and I climbed to 3500ft and filled with optimism I set off for home...and then the sky fell apart. With a 25kt H/W I was struggling and only found one half descent climb on the way back which turned out to be barely enough, finally managing a somewhat more marginal final glide than I would have preferred resulting in a straight in approach to 03. Home safe and sound - Phew!

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Meanwhile Will had turned NOE and PIC, but wasn't quite so fortunate and landed out on the way home near to the pub at Tibenham village - so at least it was an easy retrieve for Geoff T and Jenny.

Downwind Dash!

It's not often that you can fly a "downwind-dash" for a Silver Distance from Tibenham, but that's exactly what Wade did today making use of the thermic conditions and north-easterly winds for a 66km goal flight to Ridgewell which he completed in just over an hour. Well done Wade!!!

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See Wade's ladder entry at;

www.bgaladder.co.uk/dscore.asp?FlightID=23727

Nice for a NE'ly in Norfolk

True that the weather was not as good as the Midlands where there were a number of 300km+ flights logged, but it was still good enough for a nice afternoon out in the East with a number of XC and local soaring flights. George B & Mike C provided the aero-tows. The NGC Astirs were both out, as was the K21. There were quite a few private owners out including Tim D (ASW27), Jenny (ASW19), Andy (ASW17), Paul Woodcock (Pegase), and myself (ASW20), plus the visitors from Challock with their LS4 and Open Cirrus. I bimbled round Norfolk for 150km, flying for over 3 hours. However, Ben Harker got the highest scoring ladder flight of the day on his first ever XC flight, with his declared task of NWI-ROU 100km Triangle/Silver Distance attempt which he completed 79% of (82km at 85kph!!!) but couldn't quite make the second TP - great effort though!

Team Swift

A bright and breezy day, with Mark running the day. Team Swift, the glider aerobatics team turned up as they were due to fly a display at the Seething Charity Air Day later that day. But first we were treated to a little practice session! For those of you that have never seen this display, you can see it here http://www.swiftteam.airshows.org.uk/videos/team09.html

Showers & Soaring

As the fronts approached Tibenham probably got the best of the weather with winch launching and A/Ts available most of the day. There was even some local soaring with Geoff T getting the longest flight of the day with 48 minutes. The rain finally finished the flying around 3pm.

A great start to September.

T12 was available for club flying whilst Mark W and I set off on tasks. It was rather windy (I saw 27kts at 5000ft) but with strong thermal streets - up to 6kts climb on the averager (most were 3-4kt averages) - it was surprisingly straight forward to make progress into wind following the streets, though 'jumping' across them did cost a lot of height in the strong sink. I chose a conservative task of NMT-GAB-BSE for 156km due to the wind strength and threat of CBs and showers on the forecast from 3pm (plus remote crew), but the showers didn't really materialise until an hour or so after landing. I final glid all the way from BSE (38km) with a stonking tailwind giving a very satisfying ground-speed of 183kph, then local soared for an extra half an hour or so when I got back before pulling airbrake and landing. Time on task was 2:16 and total time airborne 3:08, so I really could have gone a bit further. Mark did NMT-BUN-MEN for 190km, so 150-200km was probably about right for the day.

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Congratulations to Phil Morgan who passed his NFT in the G109 to complete his SLMGPPL. Thanks to Tony G for turning out to tug and Eddie for wing-running.