Cambridge University Gliding Club

Thursday continued our run of bad luck with the weather - we spent most of the day in less than 100m visibility. Fortunately for me, this gave me plenty of time to work on my CFD coursework, due in on Friday! Annoyingly though, it turned out that the only reason we couldn't see anywhere was because the hill was just poking into the bottom of cloud - much like on Tuesday! So instead of flying a quick trip to the Yorkshire Air Museum was taken, and much musing over the Victor parked on the ramp followed. (The Victor was the subject of some earlier coursework) Jiaven's supervisor cottoned on to his absence, so he beat a hasty retreat back to the lab, but thursday night saw Andy joining us, and more port and cheese was consumed. I fear we're at risk of stereotyping ourselves!

Friday turned out to be a day we'd been waiting for, even though it wasn't an 'in our wildest dreams' day... The wind was from the northwest, and strong, so launches proved to be extremely tricky, with a tailwind (!) kicking in part-way up the launch! There was no wave, and the wind got so strong that flying was suspended for a part of the afternoon, but there was some hill lift to be had. Phil got away nice and early, and only came back when he saw us move all the gliders behind the hanger, so kudos for getting the longest flight of the week. Everyone else moved through the rota, with Peter failing (again ;-) ) to be allowed off on his own, and Adam declaring that he 'didn't like' (fair enough, I guess) the conditions to the extent that he wouldn't fly again - timing prevailed against him anyway! Rough was the order of the day, but that just added to the challenge.

Fortunately, all those of us left managed to fly, so the expedition wasn't a total failure! After the hangar doors were closed we retreated to the clubhouse and I proceeded to complete my CFD coursework and submit it (via email) to within a minute of the deadline... Hopefully it's not too bad then!

At this point our expedition ended - the forecast for Saturday was too poor to seriously consider wanting to stay, so we said our fairwells and started looking forward to Portmoak. 

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!)

As always, this term will have one of our regular expeditions, this to Sutton Bank in Yorkshire.

This is an excellent opportunity for everyone in the club to try something a bit different as there's a good chance of hill lift and wave (which is lacking at Gransden!). We'll also be taking an instructor or two so if you need it there'll be plenty of instructing capacity for you to do some intensive training - especially useful for pre-solo pilots!

If you're interested and want to come along (or ask me for more info) then email me at mch46, or check out the Yorkshire Gliding Club website at www.ygc.co.uk.

I look forward to hearing from you all :-)