After a week at work seething as I looked out at the soarable weather, I was determined to make the most of what was on offer. I was due to help out on Mark's BI refresher course in doing Sim Rope-Breaks stuff in the G109 this morning, so got to the airfield early and sorted the glider (still rigged from Jan's flight yesterday). By 11:30am I'd finished the SLMG stuff and was airborne in the ASW-20 by 12:05. I'd "foolishly" decided to set a downwind task (TIB-GRL-HTN-CAX-TIB 306km) hoping for streeting - and perhaps a longer slot than predicted - rather than fiddle about trying to go upwind to the coast.
..
The L-Nav threw a wobbly and 'locked' in PUSH pretty much at release making the audio and glide computer useless (GGRRRHHHH!) although the averager and Lateral Nav bits were OK. So I defaulted to using the good old Winter as I climbed in a thermal straight off tow which got me to cloudbase (around 3000ft) and I set off down the street fiddling with the LNav, but couldn't solve the problem. My initial thoughts were to see how it was going by NMT and then decide whether to chicken out, but I found myself romping along and not turning much as it got much better inland (4-6kts to 4000ft). It only took around 50 minutes to get to GRL making the 1st leg speed about 110kph! I'm not sure why but there were lots of gliders on the ground at GRL. There were also a few soaring locally and I spotted a Duo on track and poached the thermal just in time to see it leave heading upwind.
..
OK, I thought, now lets's see how long it takes to get back to HTN. The streets were still very good and despite the 15-20kt h/w I made the second TP in good time arriving an hour later at 1410BST. (Just over 60kph). The sky still looked very good towards home and I was tempted to continue into wind for and easy 184km GRL O/R. A quick bit of maths meant I needed it to stay working for another 2 and a half hours to get round easily at my current rate of progress. I didn't really believe that was on but calculating I should be able to make a landout at Knettishall Airfield near HTN on the way back (for an easy retireve) I decided to plough on, and again turned my back on home.
..
More good streeting and I turned CAX only 35 minutes later at 1445 BST. (106kph) and I was joined by another glider that followed me well upwind past Cambridge before he probably realise I wasn't from GRL and promptly disappeared! As calculated, it took an hour to get back to abeam HTN again, but this time my earlier supsitions were realised and the sky ahead looked disappointing with the cloubase lowered and the Cu collapsing. I picked up a bit of a climb and tiptoed through the energy as best I could towards Kettishall as planned, arriving north abeam around 1450ft QNH (1260ft TIB QFE). I was starting to get tired and was finding the strip really inviting. After quite a struggle to stay airborne I finally hooked into 3kts and I clawed my way up to cloudbase at 3000ft QNH and I radioed TIB to find they were now using RWY 08. I pushed into the 15kt head-wind and at Fersfield I was down to around 1400ft QNH again and picking fields. A bit of a try at a blob of lift made no gain, although whilst turning I spotted a good field to come back to if needed. I pointed towards 08 at TIB and was fortunate to glide along an energy line without losing too much height which to my relief put me nicely above glide. In the end I was on short final with about 800 feet QFE and surprised to find myself thinking about landing long for the trailer park. However, I could see they were waiting to winch lauch so I pulled the landing flap and full airbrake to spot land next to the K13, so that they could launch. Exhausted and ellated I pryed myself from the cockpit at 1630. The last 30km had taken 45 minutes (rather slower than the rest of the task at just 45kph)!
..
Overall 4:26 airborne, 4:17 on task with a task speed of 71.6kph, but what a great spring afternoon out. We packed up the glider and went to the clubhouse for a beer. I don't think I could have got much more out of the day. Thanks to Jan (and our dog, Buster) for crewing.
..
Trace times in GMT
Posts
