Eye in the Sky - May 2008
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Sat 31 May 2008
Report by Stuart Martin
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' Marcus Webster and Richard Mosely are rewarded with a bouyant late afternoon flight, at Monk's Down, after having waited most of the day in very light conditions'
Report by Dave Winn
Victory for the Wessex this round came from the sheer persistence of our
pilots and the most important member of our team- Andria Staines, who's
untiring retrieves makes the decision to go xc much easier. A quick retrieve
from the landing field at the Bridge Inn made it possible for the 3 pilots
that bravely made an attempt to find lift over Abergavenny to have another
go. Just after that, Andria retrieved me from an earlier xc (Imanaged
to climb out, being last in the group to forward launch in the hope to
catch something). All together we clocked up about 60k with Mr Westgate
(Ken's best mate) landing out at a fete in Newport.
Thanks again Andria.
Report by Alastair Florence
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On the way up I could see the sky behind the hill was quite messy and in turmoil so thought I might have a punt for the Lemmings trophy with a triangle. Leg 1 was 3. something KM, bottled it a bit on leg 2 at only 1. 9 KM, which left 2. 49 KM for leg 3. My first turn was at the North end of Whitesheet first time i've got out that far. Richard covered similar ground.
A failiure regards the triangle but very pleasant trying. Base about 2200ft ato so not great.
Around 12-15 pilots on the hill now and conditions just dropped off to nothing.
Had a look at St. A's on the way home as it was SW on the coast but too light to bother getting the glider out for a scratch about.
Fri 30 May 2008
Report by Alastair Florence
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Sun 25 May 2008
Report by Gary Pocock
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Sun 25 May 2008
Report by Alastair Florence
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So headed off to Knitson, very light on the top but slightly thermic with low clouds forming in front. I managed a couple of half decent sorties maxing out at 600 odd ft ATO, joined by Paul H. Wind went about 45' off East so we headed for Ballard meeting Roy M at t/o. Still quite light but we all had a good 30 mins or so until it got unrealistically scratchy.
By no means epic but feet off the ground at least and around an hour cumulative.
Had a nice walk round St Aldhelms this evening with the wife as she'd done so well in the garden today !
Sat 24 May 2008
Report by Jon Wood
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12 May 2008
Report by Richard Westgate
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Neither of the clouds in pic6151 worked properly and I was too impatient with signs of sea air to the south. Got caught low trying to cross Axe valley and landed at 60km, 100km day!
11 May 2008
Report by Richard Westgate
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Thu 08 May 2008
Report by James Roy
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Tue 06 May 2008
Report by Sean Staines
After many dissapointing cancelations the first round of the BCC was
confirmed for Monday in SE Wales. Dr Charles, Jim C, Keith B and Keith
W all made the trip to join me for the briefing at the Bridge inn in Abergavenny
and Talybont was chosen as the site for the day.
A half hr walk in to the top of the horseshoe was rewarded by wonderful
views over the Brecon beacons. An open distance task was set but later
the comp was cancelled over safety concerns as the cloudbase was low,
the dynamic relatively strong and the valleys immediately behind takeoff
potentially in Rotor.
Nevertheless the 20 or so pilots from the Wessex, Avon and SE Wales all
flew, most agreeing that it was a cracking days flying. At one point Jim
almost went having drifted over the back to cloudbase at 1400ft ATO with
a couple of other pilots.
Everyone is welcome to enter the BCC rounds with CP +10hrs the recommended
minimum experience. Please contact me if you're interrested.
Fri 2 May 2008
Report by Jeremy Calderwood
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Soon I was heading to Milford. The Becton Bunny and Taddiford gap were easily crossed and I got up to the beach huts but not quite as far as the car park. With less than 10 feet altitude above the low scrubby cliffs I really did not want a long walk back so I headed back.
Several other wings in the air when I got back; we all had a lovely time swooping about. At times there was enough lift to get to about 80 feet ato giving enough room for overflying. I took a fair bit of video and have since spliced them into a movie - you can see it by clicking YouTube - Sunny afternoon flying Barton cliffs
Later on the breeze died for a time and one guy - I think it was Brian - had a very quick sledge ride to the beach. Shamus appeared at that moment; it looked like he had a wasted journey. Then the breeze returned though only about 10 - 12 mph and a little round to the south east.
Eventually I was persuaded to have another go and headed off to the promontory at the east end. I scraped round at cliff top height but figured that the lift would be better round the corner. Soon I was about 20 or so feet above the cliff as I turned back. Then, just as I was coming back to the promontory something went wrong. . . I soft stalled and as I recovered the lower piece of the point was about 2 or 3 feet too high to clear. At about 20 feet from it I buried the brakes and planted my boots firmly against the wall of gravel and rolled onto the top. There I clung tenaciously until I had assessed the situation. No damage - not a scratch - but it was a somewhat precarious spot to extricate myself from. After carefully unbuckling I let the harness roll down the slope and then set about carefully removing the wing from the short scrubby gorse, bunching it up and hauling the harness back to where I could put it back on and scrabble down to the bottom. See first and last pictures - in the last one you can just make out the scuff marks from my boots on the face of the 'wedge'.
Shamus flew over to check I was OK. . . my only problem was shaking the gravel and pebbles out of the wing before I put it away! It was a long walk back giving me plenty of time to ponder my error. I think I was flying just too close to the stall point when a light swirl of turbulence tipped the balance. I definitely had a few anxious moments but I think I made the best decision.
I don't recommend side landing on a cliff - I was lucky to get away with it! Others also enjoying the afternoon included Brian M and Brian ?, Sean M and Sean S, Paul and Kaye.
Enjoy the movie!
Report by Shamus Pitts
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Report by Shamus Pitts
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There were no messages to say that Southbourne was working, and XC Weather was reporting reasonably strong winds, so I decided to go to Barton-on-Sea after work and got there just before 6pm. When I go there I was told that I'd missed the best of it and that the wind had dropped off but my wind meter was saying 11mph so I thought I'd have a go. I didn't put my vario on so I don't know how high I got, but there were a few pockets of "some" height, and then a few more of "not very much"! After about 20 minutes I was finding details in the beach huts that I hadn't been able to see from the cliff top, so as soon as I got some more lift I landed.
The wind seemed to have picked up by 1mph or so (and gone a little more to the east), so I had another flight. I saw Jeremy C take off so I landed and chatted to Brian (?) for a while. The next thing we knew was that Jeremy had side landed on the cliff - I'll let him tell that story! (He was fine) I had another couple of flights then landed and packed up - a surprisingly nice end to the working week! Shamus Pitts
Report by Jon Harvey
Westbay Westbay once again. Message from JP that at Eype, direction
was too far south, so walking to Westbay. By time I arrived theree, John
was way passed Thorncombe, which had plenty of orographic, as did Golden
Cap. Certainly wind direction was S maybe slightly SSE. No problems in
launch, climbed rapidly, and so towards Thorncombe.
Passed around well out to sea, strong and plenty of orographic. Slow run
out to Doghouse, then fast across Seatown, to Golden Cap. No sign of John,
so pressed on, passing GC, again well out to sea, as orographic continually
forming and dissipating. Above St Gabriels turn around, to find out strength
of wind, and virtually no forward speed, so to Charmouth instead. Fist
landing here in several years. JP there as well, (he'd actually flown
across Charmouth, and near enough to Lyme,) before turning back, as well
as several who had arrived to fly Charmouth, but found it to strong.
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