Saturday 25th October

Amid the ever-changing weather conditions – sunshine, lowering cloud base, rain showers, bits of ridge/thermal/wave lift/rotor – there was the constancy of the luminous, green hat! It threaded its way through every facet of the ground operations and even took to the air. Its cheerful, hard-working presence defined the day.  Club members, DLMs, instructors – John P and Ian M, helped by Stuart P, James H, Steve W and Paul S – and tug pilot Robin W-F worked tirelessly to ensure constant flying. Private gliders LS3 and ASW 29 were rigged and flew. The K6 HEB was taken over by the junior members, who between them managed to keep it airborne for most of the day. Their constant help at the launch point between flights was greatly appreciated. Congratulations to Luke who converted to the Junior after a check flight with Stuart. 
 

Luke landing in the Junior

In short a very busy, happy club flying day. Oh, and by the way, especial thanks to “the day glow hat” aka Richard D!!! - Wendy W-F                

Saturday 25th October - Denbigh Dreaming 5

For several days today has been forecast as the best day of the week with absolutely classic wind profile for wave, re-inforced by everything Kevin had seen on the latest weather charts and the morning brief reflected this optimism.

Sadly it wasn't to be with a constant stream of heavy showers until lunchtime. When they abated after lunch people started to launch on to the ridge. There were no visible signs of wave and nobody contacted any for a long time and even the 2 or 3 that did reported it as very messy. The highest was by a local to 10,000 feet and our Brent Tor colleague David J got to about 7,000 feet.

The rest of us having tried several times and failing fell back to the ridge which by now had some wave rotor sat right along it and it was like being in a tumble drier! Another day for exciting approaches and landings.

Forecast not great for tomorrow but we plan on flying before decamping back to North Hill.

Friday 24th October - Denbigh Dreaming 4

With no wind it was a long wait including a walk around the on-site wooden sculpture park and much tea drinking. Eventually the windsock fluttered after lunch and Pete S (230) was sent off as a sacrifice to the wind god to make it blow a bit harder.

After a low arrival on the Tusk and a sloooow climb up he eventually disappeared off up the ridge to start the ridge task which was duly completed. This followed some hooning up and down the ridge in  line astern formation in company with Phil M (611), David Jesty (EZ) and a couple of the Nympsfield contingent.

Chris H (CLM) enjoyed some local soaring in wave boosted thermals although the wave proper never really got going.

JB and JP left for home today and JP's trailer trauma on the motorway will probably make the best story of the day!

Another good day which initially promised not a lot.

Thursday 23rd October - Denbigh Dreaming 3

 Pete & JP report from Denbigh

The BBC forecast showers on and off for much of the day. One look out of the window at the wave setting up and no weather to the West made you realise that was rubbish - how do they do it?

Gliders rigged and ready to go, the only problem was the rotor sat over the airfield and providing a nice tailwind at the launch point. Undeterred most people took launches and punched through the very rough rotor and connected with the wave over Denbigh, rough for the first 1500-2000 feet but then smoothing out to a nice 5kts to around 10,000 feet.

Some of the more clever/persistent/barking managed eventually to get into the primary wave with a couple of guys from Challock getting to FL195. I think from the NHL massive, JP and JB got the highest climbs to around 14k'. It was difficult to go very far though due to the cloud being largely filled in out to the West, although the Denbigh wave bar and associated gaps just sat there all day. The rotor stayed there too making for some exciting approaches and landings!

Fun, fun, fun. - Pete St 230

A day that had started with hangovers and the threat of rain turned into another epic Denbigh day. With the wave bar bang overhead the site the winch launches were challenging and straight into the rotor. Careful milking of which allowed the transition into the wave proper. Less careful or unlucky milking resulted in a bumpy return to the site.

Classic lenticulars

Great views and some classic lenticulars made it all worthwhile with climbs available to what ever height you fancied or felt comfortable with JB and JP went to 15,000ft but Pete S and Ron both soared high as well. 

Great views

The ridge spent the day unused by all except JB who with a last minute death wish tried it shortly before landing in an attempt to get his adrenaline levels up. The rotor around  the circuit was immense and everyone grateful when eventually their glider came to a halt. 

But day - what a day! .- JP HOG

Thursday 23rd October

The moist south westerly airstream was doing its thing again today with orographic cloud covering the hill for most of the day - before it turned into heavy drizzle!

Peter Sm and Chris W looked at the DG505 trailer and took the tailplane fixing away to  recarpet. Mark polished his new van. Jill & Rob worked on the website, preparing the voting pages for this year's trophies.

Congratulations to George, who spent some hours working on a Bronze exam paper, and eventually ventured out of the Briefing Room with a good Pass. 

Meanwhile at Denbigh - it looks like there was some good wave........ reports awaited.

Wed 22nd October - Denbigh Dreaming 2

H5 Matt was just behind JP rigging at 7:30am. After brief the guys were on line and ready to launch. The turbos launched first but were back not long after due to difficult conditions and impending showers. Tea, biscuits, segway and solo wheels were the order of the morning.

Despite the distractions the absence of rain reminded us why we'd driven 300 miles to Denbigh, so we wiped down the wings and took a slingshot launch toward the ridge. Difficult conditions and rain early only increased the satisfaction when things settled down to classic ridge and extreme rotor.

In the SF27, Matthew struggled low on the ridge after the launch, JB, JP and  M5 Matt circled overhead like vultures; offering advice, insults and support. Finally he scratched up to the top and got away with the rest of the guys.

Climbing away

Everyone got through the severe rotor and enjoyed the wave, JP topping out at 10,800 ft. A fantastic time was had by all. A radio discussion about sunset time reinforced the significance between understanding the difference between BST and GMT, the high flyers suddenly realised that they only had 20 minutes to land.

Nearly sunset

Everyone down safely and smiling, a thoroughly good day. Chris H and Ron  turned up to fly the rest of the week. -Matt H5

Wednesday 22nd October

Not exactly as forecast, with no wind to start with and totally overcast, nevertheless it was ideal for early solos and Chris W made good use of the conditions and has enough solo flights now to fly the Junior.

We had two Juniors out and three two seaters in use, thanks to Peter Sm for standing in for John Si.

Good use was made of both Juniors

 After lunch the wind picked up a bit and the west ridge started to work giving some longer flights, it was a very pleasant day and everyone had all the flying they wanted. -JSt

Monday 20th October - Denbigh Delight

Having driven through the night from Mendip, H5 Matt was rearing to go at sunrise but had to while away the hours until the Denbigh morning briefing. Un-forecast showers chucked a further delay in proceedings which meant M5 Matt arrived just in time to join everyone rigging.

Sunrise

H5 Matt was a little anxious but M5 Matt said, "Go for it dude! It's definitely working" before launching first just to make sure.  Boy was it working! H5 Matt launched and hardly lost any height dropping back to the ridge. The nerves settled after 2 beats of the tusk and he set off to explore more of slopes with his grin getting wider all the time.

M5 encouraging H5

Wave Action in the SF27

There was lots of signs of wave in the sky and all the gliders found there way into it eventually but only up to about 5500' before approaching rain encouraged every one to go back and land but not before smoking the ridge a few more times. The rain didn't arrive!

Going up here and raining down there

Sunday 19th October

"You should have been here today"

A fairly quiet day at the Club, with a small but keen group of members getting the K21s, DG 505 and a Junior out of the hanger by 9:00am and flying underway from the North East side of the field at around 9.30.

The strong south westerly wind on the ground turned into northwesterly streets, and as forecast, provided good height launches (thank you to Eric who winched all morning and Mike W and Roly most of the afternoon.)

By late morning the thermals had started to develop just off the Westerly end of the field and with the temperature steadily increasing in the nice sunny weather soon several gliders were enjoying the opportunity to stay up in thermal lift, in mid October!

Lovely October sky

A short stop for lunch to let everyone 'refuel' for food and drink and then it was an afternoon of more 'fun in the sun' with club gliders only coming down from the thermals and ridge lift to allow others to fly.

Best flight of the day was Simon  in ASW20 (SM) of just over 3 hours climbing in wave up to 4000ft over the motorway.

Pete welcomes James and Will to the Club

After the recent run of poor weather cancelling many Trial lessons, it was good to complete the three that were booked today. - Mike Sl

Matthew flies over Cheddar Gorge

 Meanwhile, SF27 takes a trip to Mendip to fly the ridge at Cheddar gorge, Matthew flew out to Burnham on Sea before towing up to Denbigh. - MW

Wed 15th & Thurs 16th October

On the first rostered Wednesday with John Si in charge, the rain did not abate until late in the day. Better luck next week John.

Thursday looked more hopeful with a gap between two overnight troughs, so all the kit was readied  for a quick start. But our normal irritation with very moist south westerlies was the orographic cloud which persisted all day. Unfortunately we had to cancel the Trial lessons for a Dutch family who were on a short break in Exeter, but they were given a guided tour of the hangar. 

Many thanks to everyone who did odd jobs while we were hoping to fly and special thanks to Zoe who volunteered to clean the barbeque for winter storage after it had been left in quite a mess. 

Zoe cleans the barbeque

The model flyers have gone up to Long Mynd for a weekend.

Model flying at Long Mynd