I came, I soar, I went.

The gliding season in the UK seems to be just about getting underway after a long, dull winter where not much could happen - even at our 7-day-a-week, 365-day-a-year club, most pilots have struggled to get flights in due to the conditions. My plan for the year is to go for the Silver badge ( got my height gain a few weeks ago ) and get some cross country kilometres under my belt. With the latter in mind, I helped to organise our club's participation in the Yorkshire Inter-Club League held at Burn Gliding Club, where a fellow pilot and I took our club's Astir CS-77 to see what we could achieve. Thursday The first thing we did was to go down to Burn on the Thursday for some site checks; we know how to fly, but the vast majority (ie, all bar about 3) of my flying has been from the same airfield where the local surroundings are now etched into my brain - making local navigation and planned arrivals into circuits quite routine. Burn has a long, thin tarmac runway which i...

Just time to catch up on this weekend before I disappear off on a weeks 'real' (non-gliding) holiday. I spent both Saturday and Sunday at the airfield, with a weather forecast that looked usable on both days. As it turned out, the forecast was a little bit backwards. Saturday Saturday looked like if anything were to happen, it would probably be after lunch and it would probably be thermal soaring. Glider pilots are optimists and also want to be high up on the flying list, so I arrived as I normally do, for the morning briefing. What followed was toasted fruit loaf and a cup of tea, whilst the two-seater fleet got going providing trial flights and lessons under a cloudless blue sky with relatively poor visibility, the likely result of an inversion that was keeping the warm air (and smog layer) trapped under a cooler layer above. At times, there were bands of strange grey cloud that appeared 'creased' - not the smooth wave type that we all want to be near...

It's been a while since I posted an update. This winter has been so bad that barely any flying has taken place at all, and it's much less available when you only have weekends to do it (it's really not worth using leave days from work!). We've had rain (lots of it), snow, wind (generally in the wrong direction) and thick, grey cloud cover that seems to have lasted for weeks at a time made even worse when your launch point is almost 1000' above sea level to start with. In January and February last year I'd clocked up around 20 launches - but by the same time in 2018, that number was just 2 or 3, with no real wave to speak of (because of the easterly winds that temporarily displaced our favoured and prevailing south-westerlies) and a lot of damp drizzle dissuaded anyone from their grand ideas of becoming airborne. In the UK, most gliding clubs operate due to varying amounts of goodwill from their membership - doing everything from launching, log keeping, o...

It's been a while since I posted - something to be expected I suppose - since it's the back end of the year and this is a blog that's mainly about gliding and soaring. It seems that Golf Oscar Delta (GOD) had decreed September 2nd to be the end of summer because the weather hasn't been up to a great deal since (on weekends, anyway). The prevailing southwesterlies have been anything but, and there has been much rain. We have a year-round operation however, so there has been some flying - just nothing really notable, the odd 20-30 minute flight to maintain currency, maybe something a little bit longer on a half decent ridge day. I did get to enjoy couple of hours of hill-soaring cross country with an experienced pilot, which was an eye opener - making it all the way out to Guisborough SW and back at around 1000'. I've been waiting for some of the famous North Yorkshire wave though; although it only ever seems to show itself midweek - but finally, the ...

There's not too much to write recently. September should have offered up some still good flying days and it all started well with my first cross country flight which took place on the 2nd. Despite two more trips to the airfield over the month, the only things achieved were lunch, some light socialising and depletion of the bar stocks by a little bit. It wasn't until the 30th that I managed to get my next flight of the month - with just a 33 minute sample of some weak frontal wave in the DG-303 before it fell apart (the wave, not the glider). My FAI booklet thingy was returned to me a few days ago, duly signed, dated and stamped by the BGA to show that I had achieved bronze and cross country qualifications. It seems I managed to achieve the cross country endorsement before I completed the bronze... Sunday 1st October was a duty day at the airfield, but no flying could take place due to the low cloud that seems to have been a feature of the past month. A group of us ...

I'm a bit lot late in writing this entry, but a few weeks ago and immediately following on from getting my Bronze/XC qualification, I had a little adventure. It was another first for me, so I had to make sure I documented it for posterity 😃 September 2nd was already looking good when I'd checked the RASP forecast a few days prior, and it each day that passed, it continued to look like a soarable day with low strength winds, so off I went to the club. There's one aircraft I hadn't flown yet; the DG-303. I asked the CFI if I could make the conversion (despite having only one 20 minute flight in the Discus) and he agreed. It seems to be an aircraft that doesn't get flown all that much, so it's good to have the option. I read the flight manual, had the obligatory brief, and set the aircraft up on the flight line after lunch. The forecast had been for cloud bases up to 5,000ft in the afternoon and all the evidence was that the weather was cooperating, s...

I'm pleased to finally be able to say that I have completed both my Bronze badge, and cross country endorsement! The skills test was the last hurdle, but having spent a little more time practicing and enhancing my knowledge in a couple of areas, I have done it and I am now a glider pilot! The check flight itself was slightly unusual, having been a cross country tow from Pocklington back to Sutton Bank - but we needed to get the glider home and this felt like the most efficient way of doing it, and it also meant that the trip was not wasted fuel for the tug. Unfortunately, it's almost the end of the gliding season here in the UK (although there may be a few good days left, let's hope!) so the question is, what next? I definitely need to practice my cross country flying when conditions permit, and I may have a stab at the silver badge next year. Perhaps a bit of motor glider training over winter?