Sunday 29th October

The rain yesterday afternoon and evening (after a couple of flights) had left the airfield rather wet again and with more rain forecast for later today it was therefore a question of whether the airfield condition would allow any flying before the next rain arrived - and the forecast wind direction and strength was also a possible blocker to any flying taking place. On arriving at the Club an airfield inspection identified that surprisingly the rain had drained away well leaving a damp but flyable surface to allow aerotowing to take place - and with blue skies and a light wind the small group of members were pleased to find that some gliding might just happen.

North Hill Weather Station rainfall

 With all eyes focused on an ‘interesting’ weather cell with evident rain which decided to kindly slide to the South of the airfield both K21s were brought out of the hangar with Launch Control left at the MT hangar to avoid unnecessary damage to the airfield. As the weather cell moved to the East the sun started to appear which helped the misting canopies to clear and then it was on with the flying.

The first couple of tows, with a freshening South South Westerly wind, provided the handling pilots with good experience of flying in such conditions as did the approach over the trees at the East end of the airfield. So it was no great surprise that after a couple more tows, and with more rain not that far away to the West, the decision was made to put the gliders and Pawnee away. The opportunity was then taken to complete some ground school briefings.

A day when with enough enthusiasm from the small group of members at the Club today some flying was done when none was perhaps expected - thank you to those members who helped others to get into the air but did not fly themselves. - Mike Sloggett

Thurs 26th October

 On Wednesday the airfield was still recovering from the 30mm of rain on Monday and a further 10mm on Tuesday, but surprisingly, by Thursday the field had drained sufficiently to even winch launch. 

Eurofox was busy all day (Dave Clements)

 

Familiarisation and training in the Eurofox  for several tug pilots continued all day.  The sun was out, and soon as the high humidity had cleared a few cumulus started appearing and cloudbase rushed up to 2000ft.

Chris Warnes revalidating IFP with Chris Wool (Dave Clements)

 

For a while, and in some directions, the sky looked quite nice, the rain showers were cooperative and stayed either to the south, north or west of the motorway. 

Dramatic sky (Mark Layton)

 

There were a few spots of rain allowing a quick late lunch and then by 16:00 the sky started getting blacker, but it was soarable. Longest flight of the day was JB (with Stewart Henshall) in K21 of 28 mins just pipping Pete Startup in the Junior 24mins. 

 

Funnel cloud developing (Jacob Bond)

We had rainbows, and a funnel cloud nearby, and as the black mass became closer, we made a decision to pack up, and the airborne gliders were called about the deteriorating  weather and cloudbase. 

20 winch launches in total on a day when we hadn't really expected to be able to fly. Thanks all, (and thanks to the grass-cutting team  for looking after the pitch.) - J&P

Sun 22nd October

 Another wiped out midweek - thanks to Storm Babet this time (although Devon missed the worst of it thankfully). 

At the start of the day, only a few folks were around, but as the weather looked good, we got the gliders ready - the DG505, both K21s, and a Junior.

The first flight of the day took off just after 10 am, -missing out on the discounted rate! Some of the solo pilots ventured south and found some weak wave leading to reduced sink rates and extended circuits. 

The familiar view from the Pawnee..... (Stuart Procter)

As more instructors arrived, we brought out the Perkoz. Simon Minson and Ashley Thomas went for a spinning sortie (sick bag remaining empty). 

...and from the rear seat (Simon Minson)

It turned out to be a good day at the North Hill, and we owe a big thanks to Peter Smith, Simon Minson, James Flory, and Guy Adams for their instructing skills.  They made sure everyone had a safe and enjoyable day in the air. 29 winch launches and 10 aerotows in all. - Connor Williams

Sun 15th October

 Another morning with no catering, and again an empty clubhouse and everyone helping set up the airfield!!! Our new caterers start in the next few weeks, it was nice while it lasted! However, with the promise of locally sourced good food, I don’t think anyone will mind!

Flying started at 10:30am, with Duty Instructor Mike Sloggett starting work on the two-seater flying list. The first Trial Lessons were a couple, so Tom Sides and Dan Hender shared the flights, the husband enjoyed the flight so much he took a second flight trying a winch launch. 

James Flory arrived late morning, so helped out with the list taking on some aerotow refresher training with Andy Bachelor. A lunch break was called at 1:30pm, all stopping, as there were so few of us on the airfield.  

Stuart checked out to fly Eurofox (Stuart Procter)

After the break the second Trial Lesson arrived, two young siblings, who both required a lot of lead weights, but both thoroughly enjoyed their experiences. Flying continued until 5pm, when we packed everything away as the temperature dropped along with the sun. 

A great day was had by all, thanks to all that stayed and helped until the end, it was quite a struggle to get everything away with so few of us. - Sally Hender

Sat 14th October

It was good to see several members back on the airfield after a bit of a break, and  so training and check flights were in full swing with a multitude of instructors. 

To start off the day there was a light north-westerly. This allowed some early solo pilots to get in some flight time. With a fantastic opportunity it was all-round good for training with 18 training flights.

At about midday, the day started to become thermic as the sun came out. Giving some excitement for everybody with comments such as “where was this weather in the summer”. The longest flight of the day was Pete Startup with 196 minutes and the longest club flight going to Simon Leeson and Rob Hender with 74 minutes at the end of the day (to the annoyance of some).

Around 3pm the conditions started to become horrible with a band of rain, turbulence and high winds coming through where it was put up to blue card where 3 people had to land within five minutes with the horrible conditions as it was beginning to become challenging.

After the rough weather, it calmed back down to red conditions for the rest of the day, with a successful day of flying with 28 winch launches and 5 aerotows.

Simon Leeson was the latest tug pilot to convert to the Eurofox, and then Peter Field and Stuart Procter both took the opportunity for more familiarisation flights. It became quite soarable locally and several private owners also enjoyed the conditions in the north westerly wind.. 

Karen King with Peter Smith aerotow training (Peter Smith)

Simon Minson started the IFP revalidation with Chris Warnes, there were 28 winch launches in all plus 5 aerotows with the Pawnee.  - J&P + Joel Roulson (mashup)

Wed 11 - Thur 12 October

With just 7 flights possible in a tiny weather window on Wednesday.  On Thursday, Ashley reported that the pessimistic Met Office forecast was wrong  there was no fog ......

No fog at 0900 (Ashley Thomas)

.......However the low orographic cloud did appear with drizzle at times. So it was simulator practice again for several members with aerotows, spinning and circuit practice.

But Ian Mitchell managed to squeeze in some Eurofox training flights on Wednesday and one on Thursday. - J&P

Thur 5 to Sat 7 October - Denbigh

Thursday was a bit of a strange day. The forecast wasn't great but by 14:00 things were looking a bit more promising so some of us decided to launch. Although it wasn't raining on the ground it was certainly raining from the mid-level cloud to the base at 8500ft. W7 and 230 pushed forward towards the sun and hopefully the next wave bar. We did reach the sun but not the wave and on turning to run back for the home wave ran through some extremely sinky rotor and only just made it back to the airfield for a standard join and circuit - oops! 

230 & W7 pushing forwards (Wyn Davies)

Meanwhile JB and M had more patience and sat in the rain until it cleared and they were rewarded with a nice flight to around 10,000ft with some beautiful views along the North Wales coast. 

 

Friday proved to be another classic Denbigh wave day. Dropped straight into the wave at 2000ft near Denbigh the wave was very consistent, if not of the 'off the clock' variety. 230 climbed slowly to FL190 to enjoy the views across North Wales and Merseyside. Gliders flying further West in the mountains gave hints that showers may be coming our way so with the potential of the cloud closing in and reduced visibility a precautionary (and as it happened, prudent!), descent was made. 2 1/2 hours up, 15 minutes down! Andy in M,, JB, Phil and Nick DD3 and our temporary honorary member from Nympsfield Alan Price in his ASW28 AP also enjoyed similar experiences. 

W7 climbing high (Wyn Davies)

 

Saturday, we should have been driving home but with another good forecast we thought we'd have another quick flight before departing. Today was forecast to turn blue which it did which of course makes it trickier to find the wave with nothing to mark it. Luckily the first launchers, Wyn in W7 was the early bird, had some wispies to mark the edge and they became the wave markers for all the other gliders. Not quite the day forecast. the blue wave topped out at around 9,500ft but a lovely flight was enjoyed by all. 

Easier with clouds (Wyn Davies)

 

The real challenge of the flight today was the conditions for launch and landing, quote from Colin Ashman from ESGC - "Slight tail wind on the ground and probably 40 Knots headwind at 1000ft make for an interesting tow and redefines your understanding of wind gradient on landing". It was certainly the most "entertaining" tow I've had in a long time! 

Some of the North Hill Nomads flights

Time to go home said Zebedee so came the end of another great trip to Lleweni Parc - 6 days flying out of 7, lots of hours flown, tens of thousands of feet climbed in the wave, hundreds of kms on the ridge. Good banter, beer and food from head chef JP and the local pubs. - Pete Startup

Sun 8th October

 Considering the size of the flying list yesterday, today there was a noticeable drop in members who turned up first thing. However, with no catering, everyone was at least helping get all the kit out!
Duty Instructor, Mike Sloggett aided by DLM Gordon Hutchinson set up the airfield at the east end, and he then started the two-seater flying list, ably assisted by Ron Johns. With a mixture of of winch launching and aerotows flying progressed quite efficiently. We had a stop for lunch at 1pm, as there were so few of us to run the field.

Launch point (Rob Hender)

 The two booked Trial Lessons enjoyed their experiences and Paul Summers even managed to squeeze in a walk-in flight, much to the gentleman’s delight. We also had a visiting pilot Andy Aveling in a Tiger Moth arrive just after 2pm, which attracted a lot of interest.

Andy Aveling flying in (Amanda Jordy)

 The afternoon continued with lots of requests for aerotow training, keeping Simon Jordy and Peter Warren very busy. Steve Lesson and Stirling Melhuish both going solo aerotow and Chris Woodward refreshing and resoloing aerotow. There were 12 aerotows in total. 

Simon Jordy in Pawnee (Amanda Jordy)

 

Simon Minson (SM) also enjoyed trialling his new gel coat!

SM refinished  (Amanda Jordy)

The Eurofox was active later in the day, with Ian Mitchell and Stuart Procter putting it through its paces, it looked pretty impressive from where I was sat.
A pretty productive day in all, thank you to all that helped make things run smoothly. - Sally Hender

Sat 7th September

In the morning there was thick fog coming up from the valley and thick clumps of orographic leading to a slow start. However, once the day started to pick up, with the light winds it was a great time to get in some solos for the new solo pilots. 

Early morning mist finally clears to allow flying to commence (Mark Courtney)

Throughout the day, there were lots of aerotows with the Pawnee having to be refueled midway through the day. Over the day, there were 38 winch launches and 13 aerotows, the longest flight being 25 minutes from Peter Smith with a 3000 ft tow. 

Capturing some nice clouds  (Mark Courtney)

While this was happening Regional Examiner Simon Minson was checking out  Adam Berrisford from Mendip Gliding Club for Instructing. 

Sunsets at North Hill (Mark Courtney)

 
To finish off the day.......

Eurofox 915iS G-GNHL (Jill Harmer)

 

....... the  new Eurofox was flown by Ian Mitchell familarisation (prior to starting tug pilot conversions,) astonishing onlookers with its climb rate whilst doing touch and goes into the sunset. - Joel Roulson

Thurs 5th October

 A pleasant day but not exciting was the call from Pete, and once everyone had got round the roadworks both the training and single seat flying lists were quite long. 

Cloudy skies (Mike Horwood)

Pete Harmer and Mike Sloggett started the two-seater training with some help from Chris Wool and tuggie Mark Courtney. Just after starting there was a slight delay with an unforecast band of rain, but it didn't last too long. Winches were going to 1400 - 1600ft and careful timing allowed aerotows for practice and spin training as the cloud breaks came through. 

Pawnee (Mike Horwood)

Longest flight was John Borland  just short of half an hour. A thoroughly pleasant day after so many washed/clouded out Thursdays - 31 flights in total, thanks everyone. - J&P

Wed 4th October - Denbigh

 A very encouraging brief from Chris Gill with the words to accompany the synoptic chart “this is classic good wave, straight isobars around a high, fronts to the north parallel to the isobars”. And he was right!

DG505 at Denbigh (John Pursey)

 DSGC team now joined by Wyn, W7 who arrived late Tuesday eve. With a 2-sortie day and a tow home to follow, Nick kindly helped get the DG dragged down to be No2 in the queue. I flew with Alan Rappapore first and made the mistake of following out to the west Alex O’Keefe as he tested a possible wave bar. Needless to say the hasty retreat was made just in time to get back to the ridge. This was super rough but strong which as heading south gave the usual leg up into a wave. As ever this was frustratingly close to the airway and whilst fun wasn’t going much above 5,000ft. After 3 hours with Alan, we pushed up wind to burn height and met the next wave bar over Denbigh which of course was working! By now Chris Gill was calling out to the Denbigh massive to head to Rhyl where he was already climbing through 8000ft. After a quick play over Denbigh JZK dived back for a P2 swap with Mark Wallis.

 

Surfing the wave with JB (John Pursey)

The circuit and approach was lively but the next tow out was extreme! Full control deflections at times but all good with the EuroFox tug coping well in front. We opted to tow to Rhyl and dropped off with JB ahead and above surfing the seaside wave. I think all bar Wyn were by now high overhead so we settled into trying to get established. With the cloud moving around it took a while to get high enough for it to make sense. With JB in sight we worked it up to 12,000 ft before pressing forward to the next bar which was I think the secondary to the Conwy valley primary. Chris Gill had his flock by now going through FL170 with at least one newbie on track for a Diamond claim. Mark and I did some sightseeing and a quick dash to 12000+ before scooting back. The ridge was exciting and with what looked like showers coming in, it became a race to land with 10+ gliders in the queue.

Above the clouds (John Pursey)

 Dramatic full brake descents and rapid circuits as summoned by the ground team helped the adrenaline already brought on by the rotor! All good fun and all bar a few nameless ones reached the end of the runway into the catch teams arms, to be pushed off to clear for the next one! 

230 above (John Pursey)

 A fabulous Denbigh day and for JZK 6 hrs plus. A rapid derig, food then departure before 18:30. Shame the M5 was closed at Bristol but back at the club by midnight!- John Pursey

 

A similar tale from JB

Wednesday morning’s briefing predicted good wave and ridge lift with the possibility of showers in the morning and a 20kt WSW ly wind to make launches and landings a touch boisterous!
The ridge flying task was five beats of the ridge between PRS (Prestatyn) to the north and DRS (Denbigh Ridge South) making 140k in total. 

Looking south along the Cllydian hills / ridge (JB)

 

All the predictions were accurate and the North Hill Nomads along with sixteen other visiting gliders were launched onto the ridge and set about ‘testing’ its reliability from end to end. It was busy! However most attempts at ‘high speed runs’ were repeatedly hampered by heavy rain showers blocking the run. So we opted for climbing up into the wave and away from the showers. Phil Morrison and Nick Jones in DD3 together with Pete Startup in 230 climbed to over 17000ft in the lee of the Snowdonia range above the Conway valley while Andy Davey (M) topped out at around 19000ft! 

Looking west along north coast to the Great Orme and Anglesey (JB)

 

Meanwhile John Pursey and Allan Rappaport (JZK) and JB explored a wave bar above Rhyl on the north coast - breaking off their climbs at about 12000 ft.
So everyone had an epic day’s flying and adjourned to the Drover’s Arms for the evening and an excellent supper. - JB

Wed 4th October

 The most challenging task of the day was getting to the club with the roads closed in all directions for resurfacing. Some got caught out by the diversions, whilst others just negotiated the cones after a chat with the friendly workmen. The flying list was therefore understandably somewhat short initially. 

Dark clouds (Mark Layton)

 Pete Smith started the two-seater training until Pete Warren arrived to give a helping hand using both K21's with the Junior keeping the solo pilots occupied. The light southwesterly wind gradually increased as forecast through the day which caused the yellow flag to be raised due to the wind sheer and turbulent approaches. 

Someone cleaned the canopy today (Mark Layton)

The sun burnt through the high cloud cover during the middle of the day allowing extended flights of up to 30 mins with Nick Harrison winning the day with 43 mins. The sky then continued to change constantly from being quite bright to very overcast giving various amounts of lift. 

Pete Warren and Julian West (Mark Layton)

 Luckily the massive raincloud to the north missed North Hill resulting in continued flying throughout the day with only a short break for lunch.

Retrieving the Junior (Mark Layton)

Dave Perriam also flew his DG100 and everyone got airborne with various degrees of success. - Mark Layton

Tues 3rd October - Denbigh

After a wash out Monday, Tuesday forecast was one we were holding on to as positive. Chris Gill was definitively positive in the briefing but then he always is! 

With two sorties to fly, the DSGC team had the DG505 on the grid ahead of the pack. With Alan Rappaport as P2 , sortie 1 tested the ridge with no records broken visiting the far south TP and Prestatyn TP with a bit of wave dabble in the middle to 6000ft. The expedition from Essex had people in the right place at the right time and were pushing 10000ft. After 3 hours and with Mark to fly, the circuit was joined and Denbigh rotor really did its thing! Very boisterous, 80kts approach until within 50ft and then the whole long float thing to make a rolling finish at the far end. High concentration, water was needed before speaking! 

Above the clouds (John Pursey)

Pete Startup, JB and DD3 Phil Morrison and Nick Jones were meanwhile clocking up ridge TPs, some with more vigour than others… 

Challenging classic Denbigh Day (John Pursey)

 Sortie 2 for the DG505 with Mark Wallis had a bit of everything from sitting confident in smooth wave assisted ridge, high cruising to perilous ridge scramble on the lower slopes followed by wave. The wave was very challenging as the starting wave entry slipped into the airway and the cloud hole sphincter had a tightening spasm and squeezed out all those too low. Mark had the joy of multiple showers to navigate before the day finally became more benign and the last roll trip out to an obvious wave cloud gave a climb to observe the setting sun. A dash to 8000ft and then a spiral down to beat the sun. 

Race to beat the sun down (John Pursey)

 Another classic Denbigh day, 19000ft for some but smiles for all. - John Pursey

Sunday 1st October - Denbigh

 With more poor weather at North Hill - flying  was wiped out yet again (fog/low cloud this time -  September  was another wet month and had released 146mm of rain in total).  The DG505 had been relocated from Long Mynd to Denbigh for another private hire. 

Sunday morning briefing was held in the Lleweni Park clubhouse by Chris Gill and was relatively optimistic that the weather would steadily improve after 1pm, the DG505 was rigged in anticipation and taken to the west end of Lleweni (welly) park. 

 

A late aerotow at 4pm to the ridge found weak wave which got us up to 4,000 ft from there we ventured northwest to Rhyl where there were better conditions to be found. With a bit of guidance from Pete Startup we found the good stuff and worked our way up to 11,000 ft fairly quickly in 3knot wave. Conditions were surprisingly smooth and warm at altitude and stunning views of the Conway valley, Anglesey and even Liverpool in the distance were to be had. 

 By 18:30 the sun was getting low and it was time to head back to land before sunset. In the evening everyone was treated to a delicious Sausage casserole and mash cooked by John Pursey and Phil Morrison, with drinks and tales of yore. A great day, and special thanks John Pursey for his patient tutoring on wave flying and for reminding me to fly smoothly and straight to make the most of the conditions. - Mark Wallis (first time blogger)