Sunday 22/06/08 Turbulent flying and Instructor rescue

After having a brilliant day flying in Blue card conditions and getting used to thermalling in turbulence, Simon Minson (Who sent me solo last weekend) required assistance in a field near Exeter. How could I refuse to 'help'. Guy and I went to the rescue :)

A post by hrf on the old DSGC forum

For the few of us that were flying in those fun conditions, did you notice that all those wonderful cloud streets went a bit soggy round about the M5? (Simon obviously did). 

Jill and I had to resort to a 30hp thermal towards the Exe valley. Two minutes later we were off up the street again to Crediton. On the way back I had a look at the cloud shadows - a good way to assess the sky when at cloudbase - and I could see that the six cloud streets, from south coast to Tiverton, thinned a bit at around the M5.

With a 25 knot wind blowing over Dartmoor, wave was the obvious culprit. So back east of the M5 we started to explore the thinning in the streets from the downwind side. Fairly easily, but patiently, we climbed up in front of quite scrappy cumulus. Things improved, our cloud 'ridge' became more defined. Lift increased from 2kts to 4kts and we left the climb at FL62 about 3.5 miles southwest of North Hill, with the base of the airway approaching fast.

Later analysis of the atmosphere put a bit of 'up' where we were with vertical speeds up to 200fpm between 4500' and 14000' AMSL, and a corresponding bit of 'down' just a bit further west down to ground level. Just downwind of the peak of Dartmoor there was lift at 200fpm between 8000' and more than 26000', and 300fpm between 13000' and 21000'.

Slightly further south, and directly downwind of the Dartmoor peak, there were two large areas of lift, one over the west shore of the Exe estuary and another just west of Sidmouth.

A post by pharmer on the old DSGC forum

Simon Leeson and I got to Credition and back in the DG-505. Was a very good flight in brilliant conditions! 

I would of liked it if it was not as windy!!!! I could of soloed then!

James Hood

A post by jhood on the old DSGC forum

Thursday thermallings 19th June

A good day for a change. The overnight cold front did not produce a classic clearance. Most of the morning was a lot of heavy, sometimes wet, cloud with a base at 2000QFE, but it was soarable. The cloud started to break about lunchtime and through the afternoon good thermals to 4000QFE were abundant. I left the club at 1840 and the evening group were still soaring.

Club flying was only two K21s and a Junior, but there were a lot of private gliders out. Those flying cross country had an interesting time with a 17knot westerly to struggle against - perhaps someone would like to report in.

I think that everyone left the field happy.

A post by pharmer on the old DSGC forum

I jokingly mumbled something like North Hill-Okehampton-Sherborne-North Hill,hoping it would street in the wind,go round in either direction. Before I knew what was happening we were off!
Matt(477) and I(230) went West first and Ron/Woolie(711) went East.
Conditions going West were ok with climbs being fairly consistent to about 3,000',but in the 17 to 18 knot wind it was quite slow going.Dartmoor looked fantastic.Matt came back as far as Honiton,I went a bit further to Chard before calling it a day.Further East I could see it was spreading out a bit mixed with sea air and decided the flog back from Sherborne through that air in that wind was probably a bit much.I know that 711 struggled at times under spreadout after going that way and also called it a day after struggling to get beyond the M5 going West.
Local soaring was reported as mixed with some stonking climbs and a few struggles.
Robin W-F got caught low over Honiton for a while.His ASI was stuck at 80 knots so he had to multi task and try to fly at the right speed and still climb to get back!
A better day than recently only marred by the strong wind but at least we got away from the site.
Next reasonable day for soaring-a ridge of high pressure on MONDAY - why isn't the Club open 7 days during the season?

A post by pete s on the old DSGC forum

Going flying with a time dead-line sucks. Despite my fear of messing up and landing in some remote part of Devon and then being late for the school pick-up, I set off on a shortened version of Pete's task only just uploading the declaration to the logger before "All clear above and behind". Climbed to cloud base at 2500’ QFE over NHL and headed west only to be back at launch height before I was half way to the M5. I was soon joined and promptly overtaken by Pete but I managed to keep him in sight to Okehampton. He makes a great thermal marker by the way. The return leg was a breeze at 95kph as opposed to 35 on the way out, with stunning views over the moors and the south coast. Spent a bit of time playing around over the club and posted a few pictures which you can check out at, 
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=690060650#/photo_search.php?oid=2411863512&view=all if you are really bored.

Thanks to the Thursday gang for getting me in the sky and not getting too bleak when I went home early. The grin is indeed cheesy.

A post by matt on the old DSGC forum

Thursday's thermallings 12th June

Have you noticed? We are getting about one flyable Thursday per month. And yesterday was one of those days - so where was everyone

Post cold front instability made it soarable, albeit in a stiff northerly breeze. Two pre-solo, four post-solo and two trial lessons in the K21s, one flying a Junior, three private owners and three instructors made up the numbers. Everyone had a soaring flight (except one trial flight), most of over an hour, the last one forced it down from over 3500QFE at six o'clock because everyone had gone home.

We are still a bit thin on the ground with regular Thursday people, which does mean that there is not a lot of time to stand around chattering to keep things going. So why not join our fun flying days.

A post by pharmer on the old DSGC forum