Varsity Match 2025
The 2025 Gliding Varsity Match was held at Gransden Lodge between the 16th and 19th of June. It was an unfortunate Oxford win, with 924 points against Cambridge’s 757.
The Cambridge team consisted of Chenxuan, Darius, Darren, Ilya, Luise, and Thibaut, flying CUGC’s newly put into service Pegase ‘FRV’ (as well as a mix of CGC single-seaters, e.g. the Juniors ‘HDU’ and ‘VB’, and Pegase ‘FVV’). The Oxford team had Adam, Brooke, Sergey, and Teddy, flying their K21 ‘ESB’ alongside the same shared CGC single-seaters. Since the Oxford team was unable to field a full roster of six pilots, as per clause 3.a of the rules the Cambridge team would have to declare an equal subset of pilots on the lineup for each day before any flying begins.
[In a funny twist, it turns out that three of the OUGC team members – Adam, Brooke, and Teddy – are all ex-CUGC members, whereas on the CUGC side Chenxuan is an ex-OUGC member. So this year’s match certainly featured an unusual number of pilots apparently flying for the “wrong” team!]
Although the first official day of the competition, Monday the 16th of June, had turned up with fantastic soaring weather, it was decided that the day would be reserved for check flights and site familiarization for the OUGC team. The CUGC team also used this chance to perform some last-minute work on FRV. Ultimately, despite not being a valid scoring day, Monday’s excellent conditions were well-appreciated, with pilots on both teams using the opportunity to practice 2hr+ soaring flights.
The first proper day of competition was therefore Tuesday the 17th of June. The Cambridge team’s declared pilots for the day were Darius, Ilya, Luise, and Thibaut, matching against Oxford’s four pilots. Unfortunately, while RASP had forecasted the day to be yet another fantastic soaring day (with a window of 5-star conditions in the afternoon), it turned out that the skies were completely blue throughout the day, with thermals completely unmarked. A steady 10kt south-westerly meant that the thermals, although certainly present and strong enough to sustain 4kt+ climbs, were spread thinly and far apart, making it challenging to find or contact any lift.
Under these conditions, the Cambridge team was fairly unlucky, with Darius and Thibaut both failing to achieve any decent soaring flights before time constraints forced them to abandon further attempts. All other pilots eventually managed to scrape out passable flights after several attempts each, except for Luise who managed to clinch the best flight of the day on her first and only attempt. Nonetheless, despite Luise’s phenomenal performance, Tuesday ended with the Cambridge team lagging 228 points behind Oxford.
Dejected but not demotivated, Wednesday the 18th of June was the Cambridge team’s chance to take revenge. The Cambridge team’s declared pilots for this day were Chenxuan, Darren, Ilya, and Thibaut. The RASP forecast was similar to Tuesday’s, but this time it turned out to be actually correct, with various pockets of cumulus appearing roughly around 11am marking the start of the best soaring period. Under these wonderful conditions, every pilot from both teams was able to make a great soaring flight, with multiple repeated climbs resulting in very high scores all around.
Each pilot brought their own strategy to the table, ranging from Darren and Sergey taking the earliest flights to try to use the weaker but closer-together morning thermals to ensure consistency in being able to climb away; to Ilya using the late afternoon’s large and tall thermals to sustain long continuous climbs; to Teddy intentionally pulling the brakes every 500ft to induce a larger number of small climbs. All in all, the result was that Cambridge outperformed Oxford by 61 points, which was unfortunately not enough to overcome Tuesday’s disadvantage.
Thursday the 19th of June was yet again forecasted to have great soaring conditions in the afternoon, but this time to our dismay we had a low-level haze and completely blue sky, indicating a low inversion. After a few abortive attempts by both teams demonstrating difficult and unsoarable conditions even well into the afternoon, we decided to scrub the day (partially also due to a heat wave making it dangerous to stay on the airfield for too long). We therefore spent the later half of Thursday tallying the score, revealing an ultimate Oxford victory with 924 points against Cambridge’s 757.
Many congratulations to all who competed! We look forward to next year, when we can challenge Oxford once more at their home airfield.
Darren Wayne Lim
2024-25 CUGC Captain