I have some catching up to do

Well, it has been a while hasn't it? Between pandemics, parenting, work and every other thing that takes up my time I am afraid I have neglected this blog - and I had always intended to keep it at least somewhat up to date with my gliding adventures. The idea of it was that it was something to reminisce over later, or perhaps it might inspire someone who stumbled across it to take their gliding to another level, or just to take up the sport at all.

I currently find myself laid up with a bad back, which my gliding friends attribute (without proof!) to my trailer, however I think it's altogether more likely that it's down to lifting a wriggly toddler into and out of the car. But anyway, since I can't do an awful lot else, it seems like a good opportunity to go through the logbook and see if I can find some interesting things to write about - and get this blog caught up with things.

The last flight I wrote about was July 2020, and according to my logbook, that wasn't the last cross country that I would do that year. 

A few days later I had gone to re-rig my glider to fly again but had found that I'd lost a l'hotellier sleeve in the field I'd landed out in. I remember this incident only too well - the extremely grumpy farmer who'd taken exception to my arrival still comes up in conversation today! 

The missing piece was just a very small but important piece of hard plastic in a particular shape; I have four of them and their job is to slide over the control connections going to the control surfaces in the wings (ailerons and airbrakes) and prevent them from being able to disconnect accidentally. I made the safe choice to ground the aircraft because of this, and so I was left with no choice but to order a replacement to be couriered in from Germany. It took a few days, costing more than you'd think a small plastic bit should cost - that cost doubled to get it delivered quickly to try and minimise glider down time during the peak summer season. 

I was not stopped from flying though; taking a club glider, I went for a trip out that resulted in this video of thermalling above Drax, a wood-pellet burning power station. 

Plastic bit replaced, in August that year showed that I set off for a flight; but only logged 57km at a handicapped speed of 44kph before heading for home. The less said the better, and in fact the comments I left at the time suggested I was only submitting it for a score in order to force me to try and better it later! (The UK scoring system being used takes into account only your 6 best flights in a year).

Later in the same month, the next decent flight I logged was just 100km which shouldn't be extraordinary - but looking back at the flight trace, it's definitely one I remember! As my comments at the time suggest, the summer of 2020 was pretty poor for gliding - but it was also a pandemic year - so to just get out into the fresh air and do something I love was a victory. The route taken was the standard club triangle - Sutton Bank to Pocklington, to Rufforth and back to Sutton Bank. There was a strong wind (20kt) blowing from the South and so in theory, that meant getting toward the first turnpoint would be slow going but getting back should be easy.

In fact, it turned out to be the opposite. getting to Pocklington took just 50 minutes - not the quickest, but not disgustingly slow either. An arrival was made at around 3000ft, and then on to Rufforth arriving at Rufforth another 40 minutes or so later at 2500ft. So far, so good. All I would have to do is climb a little bit more and use the strong tailwind to bring me home. 

Which didn't quite happen.

Down to around 1400ft and never really getting much above 2000ft, it turned out that had it not been for the tailwind - getting home might not have been possible at all, but get home I did, and for those watching the live trace - entertainment was duly provided. Total time on task, 2 hours - not a very speedy showing for what should have been a straightforwardly easy flight on any other day!

My final cross country flight of 2021 was to be a race. Me and my LS-1f vs Toby in his Standard Cirrus. Not a serious race, so there would be no held starts or anything, as the club was having tug problems so getting airborne could be frustratingly slow. So this would be just two people flying the same task and we could compare notes later. The route we agreed was 220km and would take us from Sutton Bank to the Humber Bridge, Pickering, Rufforth and back to Sutton Bank.

As it turned out, there were no notes to compare - at least as far as who was quickest. If you follow the link above, go into the settings and select 'Synchronize flights by task started' - you will see how we compared.

Toby was first to set off and had a thirty minute head start on me, and our like-for-like speeds towards the Humber were comparable. There was some thick cloud cover before the first turn which slowed us down a little bit, and I arrived for the worst of it and lost 25 minutes against him, relatively speaking - which meant in real time I was almost an hour behind him in real time.

These different ways of measuring time matter in gliding. When comparing times between pilots for performance, it is all about the speed we set. This means that if I have set off an hour later, and I finish an hour after, we are equal. But in setting off at different times, we are likely to encounter different weather conditions and our flights will be different experiences. In a real race, we would be 'held' until both airborne and ready to go, and then setting off would be a tactical decision. Set off earlier, and maybe enjoy stronger conditions (or not, depending on how the weather changes), set off later, and potentially you have a thermal marker ahead of you making it easier to find the lift (if you can keep up). In this case however, Toby's ability to set off earlier was simply because he was ahead of me in the launch queue. It was not a competitive race, there was nothing riding on it, so it did not matter.

The sea breeze front was encroaching inland. Toby managed to turn the bridge and get to Pickering before heading inland again.

My experience with a later start was quite different. Having managed to beat the clag and turn the bridge; I flew north but arrived at Pickering after the sea breeze had gone through - I was still 25 minutes (relatively) and 50 minutes (real-time) behind when I was approaching that turn point. This difference resulted in clear blue skies and for me, not much in the way of lift. I could not get to the sector to register the turn and so after several determined attempts, I abandoned the task and flew back for a landing at Sutton Bank having covered only 134km of the task. 

Toby had beaten the sea breeze and managed to complete the full task with a handicapped speed of 83.9kph (2h 55m) - so well done to him.

My final tally for 2020 was just over 20 hours flying in 20 launches, out of which I logged just 5 scoring cross-country flights; but really, given everything that was happening in the world (and the fact I was a very new parent) - I was just grateful to have flown at all.