Varsity Match 2023
The 2023 Gliding Varsity Match was held at Gransden Lodge at the same time as the Inter-University competition, between the 2nd and 9th of July. It was an unfortunate Oxford win, with 753 points against Cambridge’s 612.
The Cambridge team consisted of Flavio, Charlie, Darren, Mabel and Caleb, flying CUGC’s ASW19 ‘CU’ and the Junior ‘HDU’. The Oxford team had Siobhan, Azmi, Adam and Chenxuan and flew their K21 ‘ESB’, an Astir ‘FEF’, and a Standard Cirrus.
Competition was set to begin on Wednesday the 5th of July, which appeared to be the first soarable day since the start of Interunis. The day, however, did not turn out to have the best weather, with a strong wind of 15knts and very weak thermals. In the morning, both teams put down the names of their 3 pilots that would compete: Darren, Charlie and Caleb for Cambridge, and Azmi, Adam and Siobhan for Oxford. However, even into the late afternoon, neither team managed to achieve a soaring flight, with the longest flight being a 7-minute circuit by Azmi. These bad conditions gave the Cambridge team an unfortunate disadvantage, as the Oxford team had carved out a cumulative 5-min flight time advantage (through the random fluctuations of launch heights and circuit times).
A suggestion was made to switch the rules of the competition to bad weather rules (spot landings). However, this wasn’t possible due to heavy traffic on the runway from the Interunis participants. Instead, both Captains decided to wait for better soaring conditions on the next day, with the Cambridge team aiming to overtake the disadvantage using the good weather forecasted for the next day.
As expected, conditions were great on Thursday the 6th of July. On Cambridge’s side, Darren started the day with a fantastic 48-minute soaring flight in CU; catching the start of the thermalling window. Unfortunately, as the competition coordinator for Interunis, he was much more needed at the launch point, thus preventing a second attempt at a better flight for later in the day.
Mabel was next. After inspecting the Junior ‘VB’ and bringing it online, she soon realised the rudder was not resting neutral. When she tried centralizing the rudder, there was a strong force pushing it fully to the right. After calling for help, we found out that VB’s rudder was missing the left spring, therefore making the rudder rest in the full right position (…and that’s why we do our pre-flight checks!). After declaring VB unserviceable, we were fortunate enough to find that HDU was still available. Mabel then went on to get a good 40-minute flight in the Junior.
Next, it was Flavio’s turn in CU and Caleb’s turn in KFY. Around noon, conditions had worsened slightly, due to the appearance of a layer of high-level clouds. In his first flight, Flavio only found very weak thermals. Looking upwind of Gransden, he noticed a patch of sky that was clear of high-level clouds. Having estimated it was about half an hour away from reaching Gransden, he decided to land after just 15 minutes. This would have given him enough time to land, put CU back in the queue, and take off in much better conditions. Caleb also took off at about the same time and landed shortly after.
As expected, at about 1pm, the high-level clouds had a disappeared and a blue patch of sky with good Cu built up over Gransden Lodge. In these conditions, Flavio scored the best flight of the day so far, with 3 good climbs and a flight duration of exactly 50 minutes. Caleb, trying his luck again, this time in the Junior, experienced an ultra-low launch failure, and thereafter decided to stop flying for the day.
Both Skysight and RASP had initially forecasted 12:30 – 14:30 to be the best soaring window, with average thermal strengths of 4knts and cloud base rising to 5000ft. However, as we were about to find out, conditions would get much better later in the afternoon.
Next up was Charlie, with his first flight at 14:30 in CU. After a short first flight, he was encouraged by the Cambridge team to give it another try, just half an hour later. It turned out to be an excellent decision, as he caught the best conditions of the day, with thermal averages over Gransden as high as 6knts and cloud base at 5500ft. With this, he achieved 7878ft of cumulative height gain and a 50 minute flight, scoring 206 points, making it the best flight of the day across both teams.
At 16:00, in what now appeared to be better conditions than earlier in the afternoon, Flavio put CU back in the queue and went for a final flight. He couldn’t believe his eyes when he analysed his tracks, and saw he improved on his first flight by 1000ft, scoring a cumulative gain of 6400ft in a 50 minute flight, and winning 178 points for Cambridge.
At the end of the day, the Cambridge team had the best two flights, with Charlie (206) and Flavio (178), respectively. Next up, were Azmi (177) and Chenxuan (161) in the Oxford team, then Darren (152), Adam (149), Siobhan (118), and Mabel (82).
The achievements of the Cambridge team were notable, considering we were all busy managing the Inter-University competition at the same time, taking care of 50 visitors from 9 universities. Unfortunately, despite taking both of the two best flights and fighting ferociously, the Cambridge team’s excellent and superior performance on Thursday was still unable to overcome the unfair disadvantage placed by Wednesday’s poor conditions, especially as it had been magnified by score normalization, resulting in a reluctant victory for Oxford.
Many congratulations to all who competed. We look forward to next year, when we can challenge Oxford under fairer conditions once more at their home airfield.
Flavio Salvati
2023-24 CUGC President and Equipment Officer