An attempt at a Silver duration!
Five hour duration. This is the one I've least been looking forward to. It's not that there's anything wrong with flying a glider for five hours, because after all we fly because it's great fun (and because we're massive children who are fortunate enough to get to play with the best toys).
It's just that five hours is a long time and with gliding one poor decision could see you back on the deck at any point; but equally, a series of perfectly executed decisions could do the same if the weather doesn't co-operate for a full flying day (and we are talking about a hill site in Northern England).
Since there's a currently a few of us that need to tick this one off in the near future, there have been many conversations in the bar around strategy and we have largely agreed on the principle that the best way to do it would be on a good soaring day and involving a suitably sized cross country task, so as to keep the mind occupied on other things than clock watching. Thermal or wave wouldn't matter, as long as the conditions were reliable. What we didn't want to do, in our collective imagination, was spend a lot of time on the local ridge - trying to overcome boredom (a single beat up the first bowl and back only takes about a minute) whilst at the same time threading our way through all of the potential traffic launching onto the ridge, arriving back at it at varying heights, and crossing it in the circuit. The number one conclusion was that it had to be a good day.
Friday wasn't a great day. It was going to be cloudy, but after an awful start to the year weather-wise, it was going to be a westerly wind with a potential to wave, and winch. With leave days from work that needed using up and a relatively clear schedule ahead of a busy summer - I decided to go and fly anyway. I could always do some work towards my Basic Instructor rating which I haven't properly got around to starting yet.
It was a relatively quiet club day, with just a few people I didn't recognise who looked to be learning and making good use of the two-seater fleet, but no real sign of any private owners, suggesting that the pundits didn't think much of it.
After the briefing, the CFI told me I could take any of the single seaters out to go and fly.
"What's the plan?" he asked.
"Well, five hours or 50k..", I looked up at the sky, "but..." and it seems I didn't manage to get my excuses out in time.
"Well it's not a 50k day, so go and do five hours, yes, it would be good for us to get one of those on the achievements board this year!".
"Um, okay..."
It was challenge accepted at that point. By the time i'd pulled out the DG-303, prepared it for flight, packed my sandwiches, water bottle and bag of sweets, and had it on line for the next winch cable, it was 11:20am. The five or six instructional launches before at least proving that the ridge was working well enough for a two-seater to stay airborne, and the forecast suggesting the potential for a bit of both thermal and wave despite the thick grey overcast at height.
Hour One
At 11:24, I was airborne. A classic Sutton Bank winch launch to 450' and turn onto the ridge to climb away. Ten minutes later I was happily at a thousand feet above the airfield, before spending the next 20 minutes pushing out into wind and exploring the first thermals of the day.
By 12:00pm I was back below a thousand feet, and I spent the next half hour making a bit here, losing it again further along, slowly descending to a low point at around 550'.
Hour Two
The weakness on the ridge may have been down to a bit of wave interference, I figured that if it wasn't such that it killed the ridge completely, it would be possible to wait it out and then try to get into the 'up' bit once conditions recovered. I was definitely going to climb to at least 5000'!
I didn't climb to 5000'.
Half a knot here, one knot there. I was overjoyed when I cored a two knot thermal and rode it up to 2000'. I used the height to push out a bit further and widen my options, but despite one or two more brief climbs, there was little else happening and I finished the hour at 1300', and descending.
It may have been somewhere in hour two that another glider reported being at 7000' climbing in wave, not far away - I could see him silhouetted against the grey sky. I may have shaken my fist at him. How the hell did he get up there, and why couldn't I?
I'd noticed that the winch had been put away and launching was now aerotow only. Solid confidence boost right there!
Hour Three
The third hour was spent ridge-bashing between 600' and 800' with a high point of 1000' toward the end. I used the weak, but stable ridge to keep me airborne whilst I ate my sandwiches.
At some point, possibly during hour three, I began to equate gliding to my usual cycling route - whereby there is a distinct 'half way' point, at which I start heading for home. Even though there's a 10 minute hill climb to get out of the way, I always tell myself that every pedal stroke takes me closer to home from that point. And so I was telling myself that there was less flying time ahead of me than there was behind me, so I just had to hang in there.
Hour Four
Things started to look up again. I steadily climbed and notched up about 1500'. I pushed out further along the ridge to where I thought things would be working a little bit better. I even pushed back out into the valley, looking for a way to contact the wave. Nothing.
I was contemplating pushing out to the Tontine Inn (TON), around 20km away and reachable using ridge lift, for something to do. I pushed out to the forward ridge and was encouraged; I pushed along the next part and felt less so. I came to my senses and told myself that the smart thing to do would be to get back to familiar terrain, grit my teeth, and wait it out. I was too invested at this point.
I made contact back with the far end of the 'home' ridge at around 1000'. I ended the hour at about 800'. Time seemed to be passing slowly.
Hour Five
If I thought time was passing slowly before, now it was getting ridiculous. I scrolled the 'duration' box out of view on my phone, which was clamped into the cockpit and running a moving map app - not that I needed it since I never lost sight of the airfield. It felt like the duration box was just taunting me, now that I'd noticed it.
The wind was definitely dropping, and moving around (now only 6kts according to SeeYou, it had been 13kts much earlier). The first half of the hour gave high points of 500' and 900', whilst the second half went very downhill.
900' with half an hour to go. This was fine.
650' with twenty minutes left. Still a clear 200' above my original launch height, so not worrying but mildly concerning.
500' with ten minutes to go. Getting a little precarious now, soaring limited the first bowl, and height sufficient to turn base onto Runway 24. Runway 20 looked landable too, and it isn't in strong ridge conditions, so that served to demonstrate how slack things were getting.
480'. Five minutes. I was reminding myself that it was very close to my personal minimum, much lower than around 450' and I would need to land.
The radio crackled into life. "Chris, we have you logged at five-oh-three." came the CFI's voice. "Roger that, Sutton Base, Thank god for that!" I refrained from broadcasting an expletive to the whole of Yorkshire.
I did one more beat of the ridge whilst completing pre-landing checks, turned around, and called right base for 24, two minutes later I was back on terrafirma.
On The Ground
It took a short while for anyone to come and retrieve me on the buggy. This was probably for the best as it took about 10 minutes to peel myself out the glider. Comfortable as it is, my knee (injured on a run) was incredibly stiff, my right arm was aching, and I was just knackered.
Thank goodness, that's that done - I didn't feel happy or elated so much as relieved to have made it. That was definitely the hard way to do a Silver duration - when you do yours, you should do it in thermal or wave, just like I'd planned to....
It's just that five hours is a long time and with gliding one poor decision could see you back on the deck at any point; but equally, a series of perfectly executed decisions could do the same if the weather doesn't co-operate for a full flying day (and we are talking about a hill site in Northern England).
Since there's a currently a few of us that need to tick this one off in the near future, there have been many conversations in the bar around strategy and we have largely agreed on the principle that the best way to do it would be on a good soaring day and involving a suitably sized cross country task, so as to keep the mind occupied on other things than clock watching. Thermal or wave wouldn't matter, as long as the conditions were reliable. What we didn't want to do, in our collective imagination, was spend a lot of time on the local ridge - trying to overcome boredom (a single beat up the first bowl and back only takes about a minute) whilst at the same time threading our way through all of the potential traffic launching onto the ridge, arriving back at it at varying heights, and crossing it in the circuit. The number one conclusion was that it had to be a good day.
Friday wasn't a great day. It was going to be cloudy, but after an awful start to the year weather-wise, it was going to be a westerly wind with a potential to wave, and winch. With leave days from work that needed using up and a relatively clear schedule ahead of a busy summer - I decided to go and fly anyway. I could always do some work towards my Basic Instructor rating which I haven't properly got around to starting yet.
It was a relatively quiet club day, with just a few people I didn't recognise who looked to be learning and making good use of the two-seater fleet, but no real sign of any private owners, suggesting that the pundits didn't think much of it.
After the briefing, the CFI told me I could take any of the single seaters out to go and fly.
"What's the plan?" he asked.
"Well, five hours or 50k..", I looked up at the sky, "but..." and it seems I didn't manage to get my excuses out in time.
"Well it's not a 50k day, so go and do five hours, yes, it would be good for us to get one of those on the achievements board this year!".
"Um, okay..."
It was challenge accepted at that point. By the time i'd pulled out the DG-303, prepared it for flight, packed my sandwiches, water bottle and bag of sweets, and had it on line for the next winch cable, it was 11:20am. The five or six instructional launches before at least proving that the ridge was working well enough for a two-seater to stay airborne, and the forecast suggesting the potential for a bit of both thermal and wave despite the thick grey overcast at height.
Hour One
At 11:24, I was airborne. A classic Sutton Bank winch launch to 450' and turn onto the ridge to climb away. Ten minutes later I was happily at a thousand feet above the airfield, before spending the next 20 minutes pushing out into wind and exploring the first thermals of the day.
By 12:00pm I was back below a thousand feet, and I spent the next half hour making a bit here, losing it again further along, slowly descending to a low point at around 550'.
Hour Two
The weakness on the ridge may have been down to a bit of wave interference, I figured that if it wasn't such that it killed the ridge completely, it would be possible to wait it out and then try to get into the 'up' bit once conditions recovered. I was definitely going to climb to at least 5000'!
I didn't climb to 5000'.
Half a knot here, one knot there. I was overjoyed when I cored a two knot thermal and rode it up to 2000'. I used the height to push out a bit further and widen my options, but despite one or two more brief climbs, there was little else happening and I finished the hour at 1300', and descending.
It may have been somewhere in hour two that another glider reported being at 7000' climbing in wave, not far away - I could see him silhouetted against the grey sky. I may have shaken my fist at him. How the hell did he get up there, and why couldn't I?
I'd noticed that the winch had been put away and launching was now aerotow only. Solid confidence boost right there!
Hour Three
The third hour was spent ridge-bashing between 600' and 800' with a high point of 1000' toward the end. I used the weak, but stable ridge to keep me airborne whilst I ate my sandwiches.
At some point, possibly during hour three, I began to equate gliding to my usual cycling route - whereby there is a distinct 'half way' point, at which I start heading for home. Even though there's a 10 minute hill climb to get out of the way, I always tell myself that every pedal stroke takes me closer to home from that point. And so I was telling myself that there was less flying time ahead of me than there was behind me, so I just had to hang in there.
Hour Four
Things started to look up again. I steadily climbed and notched up about 1500'. I pushed out further along the ridge to where I thought things would be working a little bit better. I even pushed back out into the valley, looking for a way to contact the wave. Nothing.
I was contemplating pushing out to the Tontine Inn (TON), around 20km away and reachable using ridge lift, for something to do. I pushed out to the forward ridge and was encouraged; I pushed along the next part and felt less so. I came to my senses and told myself that the smart thing to do would be to get back to familiar terrain, grit my teeth, and wait it out. I was too invested at this point.
I made contact back with the far end of the 'home' ridge at around 1000'. I ended the hour at about 800'. Time seemed to be passing slowly.
Hour Five
If I thought time was passing slowly before, now it was getting ridiculous. I scrolled the 'duration' box out of view on my phone, which was clamped into the cockpit and running a moving map app - not that I needed it since I never lost sight of the airfield. It felt like the duration box was just taunting me, now that I'd noticed it.
The wind was definitely dropping, and moving around (now only 6kts according to SeeYou, it had been 13kts much earlier). The first half of the hour gave high points of 500' and 900', whilst the second half went very downhill.
900' with half an hour to go. This was fine.
650' with twenty minutes left. Still a clear 200' above my original launch height, so not worrying but mildly concerning.
500' with ten minutes to go. Getting a little precarious now, soaring limited the first bowl, and height sufficient to turn base onto Runway 24. Runway 20 looked landable too, and it isn't in strong ridge conditions, so that served to demonstrate how slack things were getting.
480'. Five minutes. I was reminding myself that it was very close to my personal minimum, much lower than around 450' and I would need to land.
The radio crackled into life. "Chris, we have you logged at five-oh-three." came the CFI's voice. "Roger that, Sutton Base, Thank god for that!" I refrained from broadcasting an expletive to the whole of Yorkshire.
I did one more beat of the ridge whilst completing pre-landing checks, turned around, and called right base for 24, two minutes later I was back on terrafirma.
On The Ground
It took a short while for anyone to come and retrieve me on the buggy. This was probably for the best as it took about 10 minutes to peel myself out the glider. Comfortable as it is, my knee (injured on a run) was incredibly stiff, my right arm was aching, and I was just knackered.
Thank goodness, that's that done - I didn't feel happy or elated so much as relieved to have made it. That was definitely the hard way to do a Silver duration - when you do yours, you should do it in thermal or wave, just like I'd planned to....
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