Cambridge University Gliding Club

Tuesday's weather was frustrating - if the airfield had been at the bottom of the valley we could have flown all day, but as it was the cloud spent most of the day sat 1-200 ft above us, taunting us with its softness. Despairing even flying at all we took a trip to look at the 'white horse' (take a look at the sat pics here) which turned out not to elegantly carved out of the rocks (like the one near where I live here) but was in fact a large number of stones heaped onto the hill... complete with steps to make white-washing it easier!

Returning from our mini-expedition to have some lunch, the possibility of taking the motor-glider and flying out into the valley was proposed, and Max - who was leaving in the evening - was the first to take up this offer. Phil did the same, before the cold weather - combined with the Rotax engine's 'far too efficient' cooling system - prevented the MG from operating properly. Both pilots made some contact with wave, with Phil claiming that 'full airbrakes' were not enough to stop him coming down! I'm jealous, even if no-one else is ;-)

Wednesday though, was a day for procrastinating - or for IIB Engineers, for finishing coursework - since the wind was pretty strong and from a shoddy direction, making safe flying impossible - being on top of a hill does some funny things. A day for opening the bar at 3:45pm it seemed, which was duly done! Since Jiaven was being dragged back into the lab earlier than hoped, and the weather forecast was looking poor, an invite to dine 'at the Captain's table' (it wasn't as grand as it sounded :P) was broadcast a day earlier than planned and a fine evening of curry, chocolate cake, port and cheese was had by all - including a YGC club member who needed to spend the night in his caravan to be allowed to keep it!

As you no doubt know, we're on expedition to Sutton Bank - very exciting! We're looking forward to reaching lots of lovely wave and hopefully some ridge lift, and the forecast looks good... You can keep up with our exploits on my blog (I'll not clog up the front page this time ;-) )

Most of us arrived late on Saturday, far too late to fly - apart from Max, who was already a site-pro before the rest of us turned up - so nothing exciting to report. Sunday, also, a wash out - after awaking for a 9:30 briefing we pottered around the club house until we got bored enough to head to York for a walk around in the rain. Dinner was provided by a rather nifty pub (where it was cheaper to buy three courses than two!) and then followed by the bar. Giant Jenga and a rather extensive "stupid quotes" were the last things to happen before bed.

Monday was far more promising - A bit of a slow start saw a mighty one launch per hour in the morning, but the threat of impending showers in the afternoon sped things up a bit. Phil kicked off proceedings, getting clearance to fly his Pegasus, before spending the rest of the day making it nice and then rolling it onto the airfield - then straight back into the hangar. (Replacing a rather unfortunate Astir!) The rest of the day was characterised by high tows into weak wave, which broke up towards the evening. Most of us made it up, with only Jiaven and Julia not making some kind of contact with it (and Julia yet to fly!)

Today Adam writes: 

Day 3 promised much better weather, the sky was much clearer and the forecast was lacking the spells of bad weather we had on Monday. The wind was a 20 knot northerly with only some west in it, so the ridge looked like it was going to be quite dead. The ground had dried out completely after the previous morning’s snow covering, mostly because what hadn’t evaporated had frozen. I took a stroll out on the airfield to acquaint myself with the layout (having the place buried under snow on the day before hadn’t been conducive to working out what was where) and took some photos of the dewpond and tumulus (only the Long Mynd could have a small lake astride an Iron Age burial mound in the middle of its field). The three two-seaters came out to play and were pulled down to the south end of the ridge. The two instructors took the first flight in the K21 to get Peter O’Donald’s currency back again and we began flying CUGC members as soon as that was done.

The DG505 was showing us all how it was supposed to be done, thermalling away and not coming back for an hour at a time, but they were old hands at the game, so our attempts to mash our way through the circuit patterns in conditions we wouldn’t normally be flying in were always going to be outclassed. First up of the students was our alumnus, Phil. Last time he flew he put his glider through a tree so we were somewhat apprehensive of the outcome, but it seems the man becoming known as ‘the Cat’ had decided to keep as many of his remaining lives as possible. Myself and Martin were playing about with the two winches at opposite ends of the airfield, he on the retrieve and me poking round Colin Knox’s custom-built winch. We were having two each, one for demonstration and the second for our own practice. After Phil’s pair it was Becca’s turn to fly, and she took good advantage of the backing wind which had become a good west-north-westerly, causing the ridge to be working to a limited extent.

There were also some weak thermals, and both together got her and Peter Warner a 25 minute flight. After Becca it was my turn, and the conditions changed again for my flight; the wind went north again and dropped off to only(!) 20 knots. The ridge had no effect on the north wind, so this meant that there was only thermic turbulence to contend with, but that was tricky enough. It didn’t help that I was flying a K21 after getting myself used to the attitude the Discus takes when flying. Neither of the two final turns I pulled were at the correct height (my defence being unexpected lift and sink and the instructor can testify before any comments leave mouths!) After lunch break we returned to the field and Peter finished off the rota. I spent the afternoon back on the retrieve winch, Becca spent the afternoon complaining of the cold, and the rest of the crew worked the launch point between flights. Paul had an go at positioning one of the retrieve trucks on the upwind side of the retrieve winch to keep the wind off the crew, and Peter Warner succinctly summed up Paul’s driving performance; “He’s had one flight in the K21 and he’s already better at flying it than he is at driving that truck.”

After Peter we began the rota again with Paul, then Donnie again. The wind went back west and dropped to 10-15 knots, giving just enough to work on the ridge. It also was now low enough for the K23 to come out to play, and Phil snuck a flight in it after I passed up the opportunity in favour of another check flight. After Donnie’s second flight the sun was low in the sky and behind a cloud making it even colder, and although all of the gliders were on the ridge, we’d had enough of the cold and were ready for the pub. We sent up Phil, disconnected the retrieve cable from the main cable, and dragged the two winches back to the hangar. Gliders began flying in (the DG giving us another show-off pass downwind at VNE, next time we expect him to park it in the hangar for us the way it’s been flying), we put the gliders to bed, and retreated to the bunkrooms to change for a meal down the pub. Now in the warm, we were able to put our minds to the next great challenge; getting seven glider pilots in a Ford Focus. It promised to be interesting - but using our pilot's cunning we managed to get around it...

As it was, me and Martin had to get very personal again. We tried fitting us all in side by side but it just barely didn’t work. I had no choice but to sit on Martin’s knee. Peter’s map reading combined with Phil’s navigating made sure that our journey was twice as long as it needed to be. When we finally arrived at the intended pub we found that they weren’t serving food that night, so we had to pile back into the car to find another pub recommended to us. We found it the first time we tried (more by luck than by skill) and piled out to find that not only was there food, it was damned good food and we were the only ones in there. The table struggled a little to get seven glider pilots around it but we managed. Most of the group ordered a very tempting (and cheap) burger, and we finished off with various desserts, the conversation taking intellectual turns which only Cambridge University students could execute with such passion! We also generated a CU style bill. Seven of us spent nearly £100 (though in our defence, and I’m not sure whether this is good or bad, Peter managed to single-handedly account for £30 of it!). We then had to face the prospect of getting back to the Mynd with a) Phil driving b) Peter navigating! Somehow we managed and pulled back up at the clubhouse at 11. Becca, Paul and Donnie went straight off to bed and the rest of us followed at midnight – we were due a briefing the next day at 8:50.

Today Adam writes for the blog;

The first few bright faces looked out over the snow-covered hills at 6 AM. Myself and Peter O’Donald both went for walks on the Mynd after breakfast. The snow on the field itself was between two millimetres and ten centimetres (four inches) deep but in some of the heather areas there were drifts up to a foot in depth. I found this out when I fell into them. After an hour ploughing across runways which looked like Antarctic wastes I returned to the hangar to find the two-seater gliders being removed. The wind was a 20 knot north-westerly and after a brief spell of bad weather at 10 AM (during which we had a briefing) we pulled the gliders out to the south end of the field. Myself and Phil made a brief (and brave) disappearance down the snowy hills (armed with a good shovel just in case the snowy expanse with a road somewhere underneath it was too tricky for a Ford Focus) to pick up Becca from the train station at midday as well as do some shopping at the Co-op for the coming week.

We arrived back at the field at 1:15 to find the DG505 and K13 ridge-soaring. The wind was close to westerly and Peter Warner took a flight in the K21 to refresh his memory on ridge soaring. We had been assigned the K21 for the day. Unfortunately the break in the bad weather was short, and at 3:30 we were forced by increasing winds to bring the light wooden K13 back to the hangar for safety, securing the two heavier glass fibre aircraft to the ground with ropes and pins. Peter Warner made the decision that the conditions were too rough for his liking and so CUGC looked like being grounded for the day. However, the day was saved by the MGC instructors who, more used to the conditions, were happy to fly. And since the K13 was in bed there was a spare instructor for us. So, Donnie opened the week with a late afternoon launch, lasting 25 minutes on the ridge. I was busy playing with the retrieve winch system as I’d never seen one before – only a couple of clubs use them. In between launches Martin and myself (ever the engineers) spent our time poking round inside the engine compartment (Becca would have joined us if she had had more than three hours sleep the night before). The manoeuvres being pulled by the MGC instructors were spectacular. Donnie’s landing involved an average approach, less than average round-out over the heather, non-average steering straight for the launch point and plain ridiculous deliberate ground-loop to line up with the cable again in exactly the right place. After Donnie, Paul went up for 33 minutes of ridge bashing, and we found at the end of the day that there was a spare cable and the glider was the right end of the field, so Martin had a 23 minute flight which almost ended in the wrong field when he hit some unexpected 7 knot sink. Fortunately his instructor managed to stretch out the glide, execute a very impressive steep turn at a height that would have got Gransden pilots grounded, and pull up just behind the DG in front of the hangar. We felt we had to give the instructor, Steve Crowson, a standing ovation. But we settled for getting our rumps back in the warm clubhouse as quickly as we could. Dinner that evening was fish and chips cooked to perfection by the MGC catering staff, and we set a trend of finishing the day on the laptops, uploading photos, checking mails, and writing the day’s reports. We had a slightly earlier night, ending up all in bed at 11.