Silentwings

What a week

nick.wall@archant.co.uk — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 16:01:00 GMT

So, how did the national gliding competition go? Simply sensational. We flew seven out of the nine days, notching up four to six hours in the air each day — and most of us didn’t land out even once. Over the nine days we flew 2149km with the longest flight being 445km which took me 4hr 43min, just over 100kph (from Aston Down to Radstock (near Bath), then Chieveley (M4/A34 junction) then Eyebrook reservoir, then St Neots before racing back to Aston Down.

Of course the actual task time is only part of the flight; on some days we flew for around an hour after the startline was opened — the trick here is to try to get the perfect start and get most of the field off down track before you so that you can see them in the distance and pick them off one by one. Of course, in this game of aerial chess you can start too early and get caught up by the others as they fly in stronger conditions. Leave your start too late, though, and you might not get back at all. It’s nail-biting stuff. Imagine flying for an hour knowing that people are already way off down track and wondering if you’ve left it too late…

A comp wouldn’t be a comp without some sort of disaster and for me it was a lead breaking on my primary GPS logger which feeds a palm nav with moving map and airspace on it. I was on the launch grid at the time with a tug pulling in front and no time for repairs, so I had to trust my back-up logger to record the flight and race for 400km solely using a chart: using a map on its own isn’t a problem but it’s certainly a handicap not having GPS as a back-up when racing, especially at the turning points where metres count, and when trying to thermal near airspace. In fact I broke off one climb because I was afraid of infringing the airspace and when I later checked the trace it showed I had been too cautious and was well clear. I could have stayed with the climb which would have saved me a lot of time and got me a better day result—ah well, that’s competitions for you.

What’s really amazing about this event is that over seven days with 1000 points to be had each day, the gap between first and second at the end was just two points, a matter of seconds in the air! Where did I finish up? 16^th overall which was okay in a field of 36.

It was exhausting, but great, great fun. Roll on next year.

Truly awesome

nick.wall@archant.co.uk — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 07:35:00 GMT

Saturday noon: decided not to rig because it looked rubbish — by 4pm cloudbase was 6,000ft with 5kt average thermals and it went on until 6.30pm-ish. Beat myself over the head and swore that whatever happened I would rig and be ready to go on Sunday.

Sunday noon: looked rubbish and just about to put the toys away when we were persuaded to take a death-or-glory aerotow towards clouds lurking in the distance. First cloud worked reasonably so glory won. Set a 200k task and then.... bang, cloudbase went to 7,000ft with thermals anything from 4-7kts did the 200k task at 135kph. It was absolutely awesome and if I hand't had to break off climbs to avoid flying into Daventry airspace it would have been even faster. Should have set a much larger task. What an absolutely wonderful day to be a racing glider pilot.

Time and weather

nick.wall@archant.co.uk — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 12:59:00 GMT

Having spent the last few weeks towing gliders in indifferent weather it's time to turn serious attention to soaring because the National Gliding Championships are heading inexorably my way — yup, I haven't done half enough practice. The glider's polished and ready (so is the trailer, it's part of the pre-comp ritual for me to ensure that everything is working perfectly and clean). Normally I'd have a lot more practice under my belt by now, but sometimes life and the met conspire against you. This Saturday looks good for racing, so I'm preparing mentally for it today (Thursday). Instead of turning up at the club and having a relaxed cup of tea and bacon butty on Saturday morning, the glider will be online early, full of water (makes it go faster) and ready to go. I'll choose a launch time 40 minutes before I plan to set off on task (it takes around 40 minutes to launch the field in the Nationals and the start line doesn't open until everyone's airborne so I need to practice using those 40 minutes usefully), then it's a question of getting a decent start — 100kts or so at max start height (I'll set that on the day depending on cloudbase) and roaring off down track to a series of good climbs. I want a quick flight of around 300k in three hours using the best part of the day. If I can achieve all that, or get close to it, I'll go into the comps happy.

Incidentally, my last flight was 4.35hr for the price of a £19 aerotow — flying really doesn't have to be expensive.

When the met gets it wrong

nick.wall@archant.co.uk — Tue, 09 May 2006 12:44:00 GMT

The wx has been rubbish on my flying days over the last couple of months and last wekend's forecast was grim, but then... Sunday dawned — and quite nicely too, nothing like the 8/8 top cover, 5/8 medium level, heavy showers forecast. So I played hookey from everything I had planned and slipped off to the club. Few people were there, they'd believed the met and were presumably mowing their dogs or walking their lawns.

But two close friends had also turned up and, as one does, we egged each other into rigging and launching. It was rubbish aloft and we had just about talked ourselves into landing for a cup of tea when me mate Ray, who has been known to make some spectacular (!) decisions before, said: "Let's at least try to go to Usk" Naturally, I wasn't going to be the one to say no, so we trickled off as the high cover slid over the airfield cutting off the thermals — and our route home. I just knew we were going to meet our old friends at Usk; still, at least we could get an aerotow retrieve.

Conditions weren't too bad with a cloudbase around 3,000ft agl, which only encouraged another radio call saying saying "that cloud near Abergavenny looks nice..." suddenly the day changed into one of those wonderful, magical ones in which we had no idea where we would end up, but it didn't really didn't matter because this would be an adventure — sometimes, doing it because it's there is one of the real joys of gliding (taking into account airspace and other considerations, naturally).

So, where to after Abergavenny? The sky looked pretty good towards Talgarth so we slid silently, and carefully, over the stunningly beautiful sight of the Black Mountains — three friends soaring together with the whole sky empty except for us (though Talgarth had woken up too and was just getting busy). Then the weather went ballistic with 600fpm climbs and cloudbase over 4,000ft agl. After another hour's fabulous flying the final glide home started 40km out and just got faster and faster and faster — I reached the airfield at 120kt with 500ft in hand...

The met men don't always get it right.

Fabulous

nick.wall@archant.co.uk — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 13:40:00 GMT

Yay — the thermals are back from their winter migration (sans bird flu!). These cold north-easterlies might might be hell to stand around in on the airfield, but with the sun already getting higher and warming the ground, the combination is producing climbs guaranteed to make the glider pilot's heart sing, let alone the vario; hearing it chirp out 4kt average (400fpm to save you doing the maths) as you climb to to 3,000ft beats the wings off listening to a choir of heavenly angels. Of course, going cross-country is still a little like playing russian roulette with a pistol loaded with five bullets rather than one — still, at least there are thousands of fields to land in at the moment.

Biggest problem now is updating all the glider's software — with three (yup, three, all doing different things) GPSes and a very accurate moving map, all of which have airspace that needs updating, plus BGA turning points, airfield data, etc, there's a late night on the internet in store. Nowdays you really need a laptop to programme the glider before going flying and for downloading the flight info afterwards. It's worth it though. Whack the flight data into the laptop and a rather clever programme gives you a blow-by-blow acount of the flight (including an animated replay) plus enough statistics to drown the most avid anorak. I'll work out how to post some of its screenshots.

I can't wait...

nick.wall@archant.co.uk — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 07:42:00 GMT

Brilliant -- the fields for this year's national gliding championships have just been announced and I've qualified for all those I've entered (Club Class, Standard Class, Overseas, 15-metre and 18-metre, well, I'm high on the reserve list for this last one so should squeak in). There's little to beat racing around 300, 400, or 500 kilometres at 100kts or so against your friends on a warm summer's day to see who's fastest and smartest (it is high-speed aerial chess, after all) -- and the finishing times can be seconds apart after hours of flying; it's close, hard-fought stuff and fantastic fun.

I fly an LS-8 which is a standard class glider (15m span, no camber-changing flaps), but the LS-8 has a neat trick up its wingtips which means I can also compete in the 15-metre and the 18-metre nationals. The '8' is a very good, quick glider, and if flown well it will compete with the 15-metre machines (they have camber-changing flaps and can go into negative flap, flattening their glide and giving an edge in high-speed runs) so as long as I don't make mistakes (and they do!). In addition, it has bolt-on tips extending the span to 18 metres, increasing its performance and making it a good machine for the 18-metre nationals.

So, the question (given that we all have finite amounts of holiday and each comp is held over nine days) is which comps to fly. For the Club Class Nationals (older, less competitive machines and generally first-generation glass-fibre) which this year is being held at my home club I'd have to beg, borrow or steal something (threats and blackmail often work, too :-) ); the Standard Class is a no-brainer, the 15-metres are being held at the club next door (no dragging the trailer and caravan miles and miles around the country, which is tempting); I really want to do the Overseas Championhips which is held in Spain (10kt thermals to 10,000ft and home for sangria and paella) and I haven't yet flown the 18-metres which is good fun with long, long glides. But I can only spare time for two of them -- decisions, decisions, decisions.

This weather's pants...

nick.wall@archant.co.uk — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 14:04:00 GMT

There's no other word that sums it up, really. The sun is rising in the sky, the days are getting longer by the minute and the thermals will be back soon (February is usually the start of the soaring weather), but can we get any decent ridge flying in the meantime? Fat chance. Still, I've survived my annual check, manadatory for all pilots at our club, which means practice winch launch failures (being at 400ft with the nose high when the power suddenly comes off concentrates the mind wonderfully), general handling and stalling and spinning. Spins to the left, spins to the right, spins off the top of a cable break (at height, as if the winch launch failure practice isn't enough), spins off a final turn (at height) always a good one to practise for field landings when the workload can be very high... it all sounds a pain, but the funny thing is you always feel so good after practising it all. All we need now is some weather... or should that be less weather?

Even if yesterday's always better...

nick.wall@archant.co.uk — Tue, 03 Jan 2006 18:05:08 GMT

I've been waiting for the big one, but so far this year it hasn't come roaring in, at least not at weekends. It's curious how other aviators often assume that when the thermals go south in the autumn, glider pilots go into hibernation. Far from it - autumn and winter are the time of the big waves when the winds power over the mountains offering swooping, magic carpet rides of up to 10,000, 20,000 or even 30,000ft for tens of miles downwind (if you've never sat in the quiet of a glider cockpit above 10,000ft with mere millimetres of glassfibre between you and Nature, you've missed out on one of aviation's most beautiful and great pleasures). So far this year I haven't managed to catch the big one because the weekend weather just hasn't been there (a nice stiff north-westerly with high pressure nearby for a bit of air mass stability normally does it); naturally, one Saturday a few weeks ago a friend (who doesn't have to trouble himself with more down to earth matters such as work) said: "Ah, but you should have been here yesterday, we got 12,000ft.'' ...thank-you so much. Yesterday, after fighting off the annual Christmas cold to go out on a crisp blue day for what looked at best like a pleasant circuit (5kt westerly), the words came: ''You should have been here yesterday, there wasn't any real wave (a mere 3,000ft was the highest anyone reached and that doesn't really count; we prefer to think in four zeroes) but the ridges were working well, the wind was 28kt at 1000ft.'' ...thank-you so much (again). In fact, yesterday's flight and circuit off a 2000ft aerotow was still a great flying pleasure (and it was nice for once to be behind the Pawnee rather than up front at the business end); the day was one of those magical ones where a sea of mist skulks around in the valleys while the hills stand out like islands - all very beautiful and a great reminder of one of the reasons why we fly, whatever we fly. But I hope to catch the big one soon...