MIDLAND GLIDING CLUB
NEWSLETTER

Number 82 November 1999

CONTENTS

Christmas Dinner will be on Saturday December 18^th.

There will be a special new year - or even new millennium - dinner on Friday December 31^st.

Lists are up in the clubhouse, please book early. The kitchen phone number is 01588 650590.

I was taken to task by the CFI for being too gloomy in my last article, a couple of months ago, but I have some better news this time. The treasurer reports that the number of paid up flying members increased by 27 during the financial year just ended. The figure is interesting, since it is exactly the same number that joined during the Membership Weekend in May. Obviously quite a few members do not renew during the year, and others join as the year goes on. This year the normal leavers and the joiners exactly balanced out during the year, and the special marketing effort in May provided just the extra boost we needed, giving us a substantial net increase in membership for the year.

Task Week was a triumph for yet another year, we are certainly starting to produce some excellent cross country pilots, as is shown by the increasing number of members who are going away to compete at other clubs. This fact, which has some excellent effects on the club, also has a negative aspect that I had not thought of before Nick drew my attention to it recently.

In early August six of us spent ten days competing at the Northern Regionals at Sutton Bank, accompanied by six others as crew. One result was that twelve keen pilots were not available to fly at the Mynd at the height of the season. This will inevitably have had a negative effect on flying hours and launches by members during the month.

Talking of Task Week, 21 pilots competed with 6 contest days, and tasks were set amounting to 10,100 km flown. Some pilots got back on every competition day, so all in all it was an excellent achievement by the organising team, led by John Parry who deserves all our thanks.

We all need to try and improve our speed, whether we aspire to fly competitions or not. Only those who never intend going cross country should miss Rose's advice, and even then there will be some nuggets which might well be useful to you.

Another point that should not be missed is that training is often more accessible during winter weekends due to the better availability of aircraft and instructors, but do make sure you wear warm clothes!

We will have our show stand at the Telford Airsports Exhibition on December the 4^th and 5^th. As before we will take a part of the BGA stand, on which they will exhibit their Duo Discus. This year, learning from last, we will be selling trial lesson vouchers and course places for next year. We hope to encourage some hang glider and paraglider pilots to join the club. If you are able to help, either with manning the stand, or with setting it up or tearing it down, please contact Jon Hall on 01244 336999. It would be especially appropriate if any members who have joined after experience as hang glider or paraglider pilots would volunteer, as you would hopefully be able to enthuse about the experience to the uninitiated.

That's all for now, hope to see you on the field or in the clubhouse, but remember if you want to contact me at any time leave a message on 01426 954208, or Email me on jfack@mcmail.com

A reminder to you all that the MGC stage card system requires that we all must have at least one check flight within the year (except for instructors following the BGA system), and that you are also required to attend the collision avoidance briefing given from time to time by Phil Foster.

From January anyone not signed off for both these requirements will be out of check, so if you haven’t already done so, now is the time to get it organised.

Since its introduction, Phil has given his talk many times and just about everybody says that they have learnt something new. If you have not had the chance to attend yet check with Phil for a date for the next one.

Remember that throughout the winter the Shrewsbury School are here on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons enabling flying all day for single seaters, and that John Stuart will be on duty all day Friday making it a five day operation. Should the weather be good enough, flying can easily be arranged for Mondays and Tuesdays as well, it’s just a matter of getting together enough people to make it possible.

The motor glider G-KGAO is operated by a syndicate of eleven (Falke 2000 Group) of which the Midland Gliding Club Ltd is an equal partner.

It is available to all club members at £42 per hour for continuation training such as navigation, field selection and simulated field landing. This can be as instruction, part of a check, an advancement exercise, refresher practice or for a cross country endorsement.

It cannot be used for training for an SLMG PPL.

To comply with our insurance policy P1 must be a BGA SLMG rated instructor, SLMG examiner or a syndicate member with the appropriate licence. P1 must sit in the left-hand seat and fly the take off and landing.

Weekday flight time can be booked in advance through the office. At weekends put your name on the flying list and note in the comments column that you wish to fly the motor glider.

I suppose it was about time I did a real comp. I still wouldn’t have quite got around to it except that last Mynd Task Week, they told me I was coming to the Northern Regionals with them, so as I am always one to do what I am told (!) I duly sent in my application form. Then you have to organise a competition licence, and get lots of good weather to practice short racing tasks in. Well, I got the competition licence bit sorted! It remained only to paint the ID letters on the wing, test the wing tanks to see whether I could carry water (no), be nice to Alan so that he’d crew for me, and hitch up and head north. Up to Sutton Bank on a blazing hot Friday at the end of July, doubtless the weather won’t last as far as Yorkshire - but it did, and we pitched the tent in 30^oC on the top of the North York Moors.

Saturday morning, and we’ve rigged by 7:45 in glorious sunshine. I’ve also done my back in, so that was a less good start to the week. Off to breakfast and then briefing. There are 6 actual Mynd pilots and me as an honorary Myndie, so it’s a big team. My old mate ‘Kevin the maniac’ from Portmoak has the Scottish ASH for the week with a couple of P2s, so it’s a friendly crowd who attend the first briefing. There are about 40 gliders entered, and entries are split at 105 handicap - the Astir at 99 is the lowest handicap in the comp, along with a Libelle who is also doing his first comp. That means that we have to fly against all the hot Discusses, but not try to beat the ASH-25s. They are known as the Upper Class, we are the Working Class…..

Day 1 - We were set 185 km up and down the Vale of York, it was southeasterly, very hot and blue, but finally got going to let us race round. Much to my surprise, I came fourth. What a cracking start to a competition career - although it was bound to go downhill from there!

Day 2 - Sunday was rather claggy and horrid, they launched a sniffer to see if it was thermic who promptly landed out at the bottom of the hill. They threw us up there anyway - guess where - up and down the Vale of York with both classes doing 128km - yes, it was that good. This was the day the rest of you did 300 kms at 90 kph. Cloudbase was low, and it was very murky, although there was reliable lift. In best racing style I tiptoed round in survival mode, still managing to get too close to the ground too often, got rained on several times, but was happy that everyone else was also taking ½ knot climbs. However, they must have found some good ones too, as I came well down the pack. Down to tenth place overall, curses!

The next day got thermic for long enough to launch the Open class, but not to launch the Standard class with any chance of getting round. We continued to sunbathe, as we did all the next day. It’s tough, this grid-squatting business, but someone has to do it.

Day 3 - Wednesday, we were set 170ish km for both classes, I’m going to surprise you, up and down the Vale of York. Mike Thick in the ASH-25 got round. The other 39 gliders all landed at Wetherby, the last TP, having glid out from the obviously-going-to-be-the-last-cloud. It was like the Normandy landings, there were that many gliders in the fields - mostly several to a field. I managed to pick my own field but was joined shortly afterward by one of the Mynd pilots. Middle ranking effort from me again, but in fact I’d only have scored 30 points more (out of a possible 1000) if I’d come second, we were all that close.

Thursday, back to real weather, yes, it rained. I had been getting rather worried that perhaps we weren’t in Yorkshire after all - so this made me feel much better!?

Friday dawned better but still southeasterly - who believes in good days in SE airflow? Well, I do now. They set us both 304 km into the Pennines, no, I lied about that, actually a south/north/south task guess what, up and down the Vale of York. Off we all went, well, all except the pilot who inadvertently managed to land out before the start gate opened. Off down to Doncaster, which the bad weather from the south reached just as we did. I managed to get round the TP and glide back north to the better conditions, but in the knowledge that after we’d been up north, we had to come back again, it looked like a certain landout, oh no, not again, the whole pack into the same field near Wetherby… We headed up to Northallerton then turned bravely back to the south. Hallelujah, the met man was right for once in his life - he said the high cover would break up and it did, receding back to the south as we raced into Burn TP and legged it for home. The racing Astir and I managed fourth again.

Sadly, the promised good weather for the weekend failed to materialise and that was our last competition day. Five days for the Open class, four days for us in the Standard class. I am reliably informed that this is absolutely average for a British comp week.

So, what was it like?

Good bits: the flying! The Met and the task setting were unbelievably good on the days we flew - even on the everyone-landed-out day they were only out by 10 minutes or about one thermal on the task length. It was great fun, and very restful to let someone else decide what task you have to fly and then just go and do it in the company of lots of other gliders. Nobody I saw indulged in any unacceptable gamesmanship, and in general (but see below) the standard of airmanship in thermals was high and flying safe.

Bad bits: it is clear that you can be caught out by the spirit of ‘push-on-regardless’. On the first day there were several very dodgy finishes with people apparently being surprised at finding huge sink on approaching low from the west into the lee of the ridge in a strong easterly. I allowed nearly 1000 feet extra and needed it. Several people got caught out on final glide and sensibly landed out in fields at the bottom of the ridge. One pilot elected to keep coming until he was too low and too close, tried to turn too tightly away from the ridge and spun. Amazingly and happily, he landed in the trees and was completely uninjured. This severe lesson resulted in much better circuits/finishes for the rest of the comp - so anyone reading this learn the lesson now! Met, aerodynamics and mortality do not change just because you are competing. Comp finishes have their place - and their place is ONLY where it is safe.

More good bits - lounging around on the grid in the sunshine, having an excellent crew who reached my only land-out field about 30 mins after I did (so good I’d marry him!), polished every bit of the glider repeatedly, and generally pandered to my every whim. Sharing stories with the other pilots who’d been out there. A definite spirit of fraternity (sibling-ternity for the PC amongst you) among the pilots and crew. The Saturday night party with an excellent rock’n’roll band, where we lived up to the Rebels’ reputation (you’ll have to ask Alan about ‘the Myndettes’ backing vocals), the discovery of Bob Bromwich as John Travolta, the conga lines, and finally not letting the band stop until the lead guitarist’s fingers were (literally!) bleeding. (Oh my god, the prospect of having to fly the following day, don’t rig so loud…)

And the other good bit? The results! The Mynd team won the Standard class in the person of Rose ‘Myndette’ Johnson, Iain ‘Welsh-Git’ Evans came third in the Open, and I won the Novice Trophy for highest placed pilot in their first regionals. I beat Derek Piggott to name but one demi-god, and came eighth overall. I came fourth on the two racing days, and learnt a lesson from the day I did least well.

Would I do it again? You betcha! Who’s coming to make it a Shalbourne team next year?

The Dinner Dance and Trophy Presentation will be on Saturday April 1^st 2000 at 19:30 for 20:00. It will be held at Ludlow Racecourse.

The guest speaker will be Marc Asquith, the retiring Chairman of the British Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association. This should be an interesting evening, so make a note in your diaries now.

More details in the New Year newsletter.

Welcome to new members Jonathan Barnes, Roger Brown, Richard Lewis, John Roberts, Michael Saxton, Edmund Shephard, Michael Steiner and Russell Wetherell. Our congratulations and best wishes to Jon Blackhurst and Andy Holmes on embarking on their training as airline pilots.

Congratulations to Russ Attwood, Richard Hodge, Ian Love and Steve Tilling on going solo, Adrian Hill and Liz Tusar on completing Bronze C, and David Crowson and Jon Taylor on the first part of the 100 km Diploma. They flew on Simon Adlard’s cross country course held at the Mynd in that lovely first half of September. I joined them for the 100 km day and enjoyed a beautiful flight in Wales, with stunning visibility. I remember thinking, ‘Who needs to go to Scotland when Wales is just on the flying doorstep?’. But we did join the party for the annual Aboyne trip, eventually (thank-you Chris for retrieving the glider after JP’s car broke down, and Meg for wondering how far south on the M6 Chris had got). They had better weather the week before us, enjoying some good flying.

The week before Simon’s course Iain Evans, Rose Johnson and David Rance all set off on 300 km flights, flying about 250 km of the task, while John Stuart went to Talgarth and back. On the 10^th October John Stuart took Colin Knox wave flying in the motor glider. There was more lovely, now autumn, weather on 11^th - 13^th October, with some modest cross countries on the 13^th. Then the easterlies followed by rain arrived, and wiped out the whole of a course week (18^th - 22^nd October), which is unusual. That weather also upset the expedition to Sutton Bank. Those who visited the Borders club at Milfield had a better time. The last week of the course season ended well, and we are having the usual autumn visitors to the club.

Over the weekend of 23^rd - 24^th October the caravan park was wired with a ring main. The project started some weeks ago with design, planning and galvanising the poles, and finding a few people who would definitely be available to help. I expected not to have enough people to help, but actually we were short of spades. What happened proved what can be achieved if a team of people get together with a target.

Nick H-S and I wired the boxes on Friday in the Shirenewton workshops, almost finishing at 19:00. Saturday morning came wet and cold. But the work started with the digger working till dark without a lunch break. By nightfall we were almost halfway; ‘not quite far enough’, I thought! On Sunday the digger started again at 08:00, sorry Jan! And we only managed to hit one drain and one obsolete cable, thanks to Jon Hall’s dowsing. To those sceptics amongst you, yes it does work. The team worked until they dropped. It rained all day and everything got covered in slimy mud. It was hard to hold tools because of the wet, cold mud. The power was turned on at 18:30 and Derek turned his fridge on.

If this can be achieved in a weekend what else can teams of club members do? It could save the club a fortune and we could buy a new glider. Think about it! We also installed a new water ring main in the caravan park. Derek has continued the work with new insulated stand pipes. (Is this man human? He never seems to stop.)

My sincere thanks to the following team: Derek Platt, Colin Knox (the Digger), Gill Reeman, Steve Male, John Stuart, Jan Stuart, Mike Stuart, Eddie Humphries, Nigel Holmes, Richard Hinley, Charles Carter, Jan Outhwaite, Colin Calderhead, Neal Clements, Mike Whitton, Keith (Shell Suit Stay Pressed) Laidler, Chris Harris, Jon Hall (dowsing) and Nick Heriz-Smith (he tried to get out of it with an instructors’ course).

Paul Shuttleworth was crewing for Jon Hall and Richard Langford was crewing for Welsh Git. They went off together in a K21 for a jolly while the task was in progress and landed out. RL had WG’s car keys in his pocket. WG got back and had to fetch them both.

Arrived late. Eddie and Welsh Git were in the bar coming out with comments like "My caravan’s going to be all cold and miserable," and "I wish I was at home with the central heating." Yes folks! Task Week is upon us once again.

There is talk of a big task tomorrow and early start so as I’m crewing for Julian again I’d better sign off for now before my batteries go flat.

Nick is setting tasks, John Parry is Task Director and doing the scoring and complicated bits involving computers. Welsh Git is doing the met.

The MOD is due to be carrying out GPS jamming trials this week and this weekend sees the GPS week 1024 rollover to week 0 which may cause problems with older models of GPS.

One of the busiest weekends for comps with the end of the Lasham Nationals and Regionals and the start of several others, including the Dunstable and Cambridge Regionals, the Junior Nationals at Bidford.

Task: Cheltenham Racecourse, Bromsgrove Station Bridge, Mynd: 192 km.

It started off looking a bit grotty with low cloud cover but as forecast the cloud burned off and by 2 o’clock it was starting to look promising.

During briefing somebody pointed out that we have three trial lessons booked to which Pete Turner commented that everybody flying the task in a two seater should take a trial lesson with them. Quick as a flash Martin added that Roger already is!

Julian was standing in the corridor outside the loo with his coffee mug in his hand, Keith Laidler walked past and put 10p in it.

Richard Langford did his Silver distance and landed out. We now know why he insists on crewing for winners, he’ll be in a field himself so the pilot he’s crewing for must get back to retrieve him.

1st Welsh Git 1000 points.

2nd Julian Fack 892 points.

Most of them got back with only 3 landouts.

Meg wants to set the task as she feels that Nick is putting far too much emphasis on met, airspace, lift etc. and not giving any consideration to whether there are any decent restaurants on track.

There was some disagreement between Nigel and Mac (JGJ) over when they started; was it half an hour ago or quarter of an hour ago or should we split the difference? They were presented with watches in the briefing whereupon Nigel demonstrated his ‘state of the art’ talking watch thus re-affirming the notion that they have a problem in the timepiece department.

Started clear but cold with a 15 knot easterly.

Several GPSs went down. Most were rectified by numerous re-starts but some, including Julian’s Cambridge 10 logger and Herr Flick’s GPS 55 could not be coaxed out of their comatose state. Julian was able to borrow Dave Wilson’s later 12 channel version which worked.

Paul Garnham took a member of the local falconry fraternity off in the Falke to look for a missing falcon fitted with a radio tracker. They didn’t find it but it was later found close to home.

An unfortunate confusion with a stop signal left the tug looking like a spent prop (please excuse the ghastly pun) from an episode of Dick Dastardly and Catch The Pigeon.

Task: Small task set Ludlow, Seighford, Mynd: 140 km.

Approaching warm front later in day with ever increasing amounts of high cloud cover. Most got back, some in style (JGJ).

Went to the Crown with Julian, Meg and Paul Whitt, who arrived today, for dinner. Another customer who ordered rare steak had to sign a disclaimer before they would accept the order. Do they have Japanese puffer fish on the menu?

It rained in the night as a front went through. The day started with low cloud cover and about 15 knots easterly. The task briefing was put back to 12 o’clock when the day was scrubbed.

Tony Danbury eventually got his GPS 55 working but while doing so in the car park he acquired a radical new hairstyle. Consequently he will be referred to as Tin-Tin throughout the rest of this article.

According to Dickie Feakes there is a software fix to speed things up on 55s.

Richard Bennett brought his antiquated Trimble Ensign GPS up which worked first time.

The afternoon saw a mass exodus to Shrewsbury to see the remade version of The Thomas Crown Affair.

Warm sector clag. Day scubbed early so we went karting at Worcester.

Tim Orchard demonstrated that it is possible to come to grief in a kart by ending up sprawled, flat on his back over the tyres. Later in the day he caught his tackle in the steering wheel while getting out. Mac hit the side and it took several minutes to separate his kart from the woodwork. During heat 8 a long tussle between Jon Lewis, who was leading, and Nigel Holmes resulted in a coming together. Both drivers were black flagged with Nigel commenting afterwards, "He got the bollocking."

Another driver, who shall remain nameless (and hairless) clearly should have been black flagged on several occasions but wasn’t, prompting speculation that the track owner may be a fellow mason.

Jason Nuttall hit the woodwork bending the rear axle, Jon ‘Black Flag’ Lewis lost a back wheel.

After a long and bloody tussle, the victors emerged as follows:-

1st Ian McArthur

2nd Michael Whitton

3rd Colin Calderhead

Weather wet. Outside it was even wetter. From now on all persons wishing to enter the briefing will be searched for concealed weapons.

Orch and I cleaned the keyboard from the clubhouse PC when we discovered the ‘A’ wouldn’t work and we needed it for the stunt driving game. You don’t realise how many keys there are on a keyboard until you see them all floating around in a bowl of Flash.

During the afternoon a party of us went ten pin bowling in Shrewsbury. Bald Eagle won the day very closely followed by Colin Calderhead with Derek Platt in third.

Pleased to say that we didn’t wreck the joint in spite of Jon Lewis apparently confusing bowling with the shot putt.

An unstable showery day with a 20 knot westerly. Task: Montgomery Castle, Bishops Castle, Marton Pool, Montgomery Castle, Mynd: 76km.

Landing in Wales must be considered an unknown quantity following the opening of the Welsh Parliament in which the Queen showed a complete disdain for Welsh culture by neglecting to uphold time honoured tradition by throwing one’s knickers over Tom Jones.

10 gliders attempted and only Nick Heriz completed. Many landed out, the first of which was Tin-Tin. Welsh Git nearly got back but landed just short.

Whacker took the sensible precaution of putting a new battery, bought from the office, in his EW. Unfortunately the ‘new’ battery just about had enough juice for the EW to power up and cough out again, leaving Whacker bereft of trace and points. As I write this JP is trying to extract a trace from his GPS track log.

I won’t mention whose trailer brakes seized during the last two weeks or so it has been sitting on the trailer rack, to the extent that it had to be pulled out with Jon Lewis’ winch on his Landrover. What a pity you were in a field Iain, you missed the entertainment!

Dinner at the Three Tuns at Bishops Castle. Unfortunately they had had a busy night and didn’t have the full menu available so they offered a reduction. The food and service were superb and I would not hesitate to go back.

The consensus is that tomorrow should be better and the week end could be really good.

Dawned bright and sunny. Task set 200 km; Stone, Bangor, Mynd. Stopped at 11:30 when large amounts of cloud cover became apparent and the day clearly wasn’t developing as expected. Re-brief at 12:15. New task: Shelton Water Tower, Mortimers Cross, Mynd - 100 km well used Tim’s triangle. Later on the conditions improved leaving Nick feeling that he may have been better off with the 200 km task but it was too late to change.

18 attempted the task with 8 completing. From the ground the conditions looked good but it was obviously not an easy day.

1st Welsh Git

2nd Nick Heriz

3rd Julian Fack

The Mynd K21 trailer set off in dramatic circumstances for Roger and Pete with seized brakes. According to unconfirmed reports somebody had to pee on the wheel to cool the brakes. I have not been able to ascertain a) if this is true, or b) who did the heroic deed.

As I write I am eating a slice of the ‘Matty Holmes GCSE Results Celebrations Cake’ (10 passes at grade ‘C’ and above). Well done Matty!

The curse of Whacker struck again. Having put a new ‘new’ battery in his logger his plug fell out half way along the second leg. Again, John extracted data from his GPS track log.

Started bright and sunny with feverish rigging activity early on. For a short time the sun was hot on the ground, almost uncomfortably so. By around 11:30 we had total cumulus cover and the temperature had dropped dramatically. The task which had been set was reduced to Leominster, Great Malvern, Mynd: 122 km. During the afternoon the sky cleared and the ragged, messy clouds gave way to well formed classic cumulus. Nick launched first and others followed. Most completed with Julian reporting thermals clearly defined by the characteristic aroma associated with chicken farms.

Some controversy over Paul Stanley having taken a 3,000 foot tow in the Big Discus but as he had already gone round the task once before ‘starting’ and then doing it again, this wasn’t really a valid protest.

Orch left late and by quarter to seven nothing had been heard of him. As comments were being muttered about people going off cross country without having organised a crew, the Skylark appeared out of the blue, quite literally, having done a cloud climb in the last gasp of the day.

David D’Arcy and Colin Calderhead attempted Silver distance in the K23s; David landed short but Colin made it to Edgehill. He landed in an aero-towable field near Shennington but their privately owned tug has a strict "no field retrieves" rule attached. Unfortunately with only one trailer Colin’s crew couldn’t leave until David was back. They got back at 1:30 in the morning,

Other things to report: Ian Butt’s chequered trousers, a plague of flying ants (don’t walk fast with your mouth open!) and Whacker’s logger worked.

The traditional form of family evening entertainment in the days before radio and television, having a sing-song around the piano, is great fun, especially with Richard Langford playing the piano. Whenever I hear Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now I’ll be reminded of this week.

If last night’s bar talk (and this morning’s met) was to be believed, today should have been the best day of the week. Nick set three tasks, a 300 km and two fall backs. A thin layer of cirrus thickened and a 10 - 15 knot south westerly produced some interesting wave early on. The expected temperature rise didn’t happen and so the task was scrubbed at 1:20 leaving time to watch the Belgium Grand Prix (not won by Bald Eagle!).

A riotous evening was had by all courtesy of Eddie’s Bavarian Oompah band who did us proud as ever.

Following the passage of a cold front around midnight should have heralded a good thermic day with several hours good soaring to be had. Given the problems of towing trailers on a bank holiday, a task of O/R Abergavenny was set for the comp with the option of returning via Banbury for anyone wanting a 300 km.

After several launches it became apparent that the day wasn’t turning out to be as easy as forecast; at one point the whole field were drawn to an area of suspect lift on the ridge like wasps to a jam jar.

Twelve gliders left site and only one completed the task. Nick turned back early after commenting that the task setter should be shot and the met man (Welsh Git) landed out and didn’t return at all, even to collect his prize for winning the week. Julian landed near Abergavenny; by the time Meg and I arrived he had walked for two hours solidly and hadn’t managed to find the farmer. On the way out we passed by the farmhouse and Julian called in. He had the fright of his life when he glanced towards a barn and saw two faces staring out of the window at him. When he had recovered his composure and looked again he saw what appeared to be two decapitated heads, complete with bits of neck dangling down. He seemed fairly, but not totally!, certain that they were rubber masks. Fortunately the farmer wasn’t in so he wasn’t greeted with, "Well you’d better come in, I had a two seater land in that field last week."

Paul Stanley was the only competitor to get round the task in the Big Discus (is that thing fitted with skyhooks?).

Tin-Tin turned Abergavenny and got about a mile on the return leg to take second place for the day.

Richard ‘Land Out’ Langford attempted the 300 km in the K23 and landed out.

During the coming week hot weather and booming conditions are forecast. Now, where have we heard that one before?

Herr Flick asked Martin to take a look at his apparently dead EW barograph. After unsuccessfully attempting to switch it on Martin asked if it had a fresh battery in it. Herr Flick looked puzzled and replied that he didn’t know as he thought they ran off the mains. Isn’t life a bitch when you lose out on a Diamond height because the flex is too short!

It was our last flying day and it was wave. It was also Friday 13^th but they’re not superstitious in Nevada. Three black vultures rarely gather and then only for a squashed skunk.

Len was more frustrated than I was. Certainly they had rarely experienced weather like it in August with a jetstream bringing cold maritime air southward and consequent thunderstorms, heavy cloudcover, lowered temperatures and most unprecedented of all, rain. This day was different but we had no choice about the task. It was a kind of ‘duffer’s’ 300, entered into the GPSs at probably five in the morning by the go-getting Tony Sabino.

"All you have to do is follow the wave. Laurel and Hardy could do it." (The analogies were getting painful).

For once I found a reasonably well behaved ten knotter and left it at 13,000 to push towards the mountain as the textbooks tell you. And there it was… the often written about, much dreamt about, Sierra wave. The vario fused itself onto seven knots and the picture-postcard perspective began to change.

Wimpish doubts about the oxygen canala system and the need to be four thousand feet lower to start the task prompted a shift back in the wave at 21,500. Still keeping strictly inside the high altitude window I felt cosily ‘legal’.

A glance along the wing of the Discus and an odd excrescence on the leading edge that in an eyeblink became the full circumference of a fan jet engine. In the split second that followed it was the red and gold livery of Southwest Airlines that left the searing impression. A loud ‘whoosh’ filled the cockpit.

I couldn’t quite believe it. How close was that? Weren’t they supposed to see you in an era of discriminators and transponders and all that technical gaff? I had braced for the wake turbulence that never came.

"Romeo Papa ..... Soar Minden. Where are you?"

"Having a nervous breakdown". (I didn’t really say that.)

The Sierras lose their shape north of Verdi and the small, high level cumulus that in places had marked the wave were now gone. I turned Halleluja in heavy sink. There didn’t seem much to rejoice about down there either. It was only a ‘T’ junction in the desert.

"Romeo Papa ..... Oscar Gulf. Where are you?"

"Back in six knots."

"Attaboy. Hang out there."

Twice I tried to cross that sea of sink and turbulence, between times even going back to the turning point for a bit of variety and because I hadn’t done it properly the first time. On the second attempt and after losing 6000 feet in a very short time indeed, I fled back to Stead and called circuit, taxying off that gigantic runway to park on an equally vast apron and then wander across to the home of the firebomber loading crews and drink English tea with them with the little fingers sticking out. So much for the duffer’s 300 and so much for the hairy moments of the holiday. But if the Devil had been watching then how apt would have been his words from the Larson cartoon… ‘I’m just not getting through to that guy’.

On the tow home Mike Moore called Reno to ask to transit below 10,000 and so avoid the rotor but they gave us a heading and the heading was SSW. The rotor was waiting and this time it was taking no chances.

The rocking and the rolling had reached a point where I was sure that the rope had gone. At one glimpse it actually appeared stretched ahead of the tug. There followed a few seconds grace and then I was catapulted forward. Time to pull off? There was no need. I never actually felt the shock that broke the rope at the tug end but the ‘thwack’ as the full length of it hit the Discus was quite the equal of the ‘whoosh’ of four hours earlier. And it wasn’t even my birthday. (That had been the day before.)

The rope was diagonally across the canopy but was flipping from side to side rather like an oversize yawstring which suggested it was hooked up on the tail instead of over the trailing edge of one wing. It could be mightily unwise to release at the front end to say nothing of the wisdom of dropping a 150 rope and rings on litigation conscious U.S. motorists. To add to the fun I’d lost radio contact and could verify nothing with the tug. The sink was off the clock again and all was unlandable in sight except for Reno International at a tempting twenty degrees. The tug hung in the air to my right and the odd little formation with the long whisker set off on the 15 mile trek back northward. The decisions seemed to be making themselves and the silence was curiously calming.

The game, however, was not quite over. It was still Friday 13^th and the Prince of Darkness needed one last laugh. With Stead not entered into my own GPS and unable to pick it out at this much lower altitude against the tawny landscape, I began a frantic twiddling through the channels to try and reactivate the radio.

"Yankee two niner ..... Romeo Papa. I can’t see the airfield. Can you take the lead please?" Click! "Yankee two niner ..... Romeo Papa. I can’t see the ......" and so on and so on. Any listener would have thought I was on helium. And then suddenly the features sprang into place and there was that colossal runway.

I hadn’t moved. I just sat there. Mike taxied up behind, gathered up the rope and was now knocking on the perspex.

"Hey … neat. You saved Tony’s rings. Good job I got a spare rope in the hopper."

"Mike. I got news for you. My day is over."

Two hours later I was still descending from a personal high, head pillowed against the parachute and the apron still warm underneath me. It was 7am in England. Tony swept up with the trailer and an unusually sprightly Len jumped out.

"Runway big enough for you?"

"Now don’t YOU start."

Many of you don’t realise that as a member of a club affiliated to the BGA you have kindly subsidised my trip to Poland as part of the British Women’s Gliding Team this year! One of my ways of saying "thank you" is to try to pass on some of the useful lessons that I have learnt on team training.

I used to pester Simon to try to teach me to fly faster, thinking that there was some magic secret to it. Of course there isn’t, but there are a myriad of tiny things that I was doing wrong (and some of them I still do!). None of them will come as any surprise to those cross country pundits amongst you but perhaps you may find it useful to think about some of them or comment in the next newsletter if you don’t agree with any of them.

The single greatest determinant of cross country speed is the average rate of climb in thermals. The time taken to complete a 300 km flight consists of the time to fly 300 km in an approximate straight line and the time it takes to climb approximately 30,000 feet. If half the climbs are 2 knot climbs and half the climbs are 4 knot climbs then you may think you have averaged about 3 knots over the whole flight. However a bit of school boy arithmetic will tell you that your average rate of climb is actually only 2.66 knots. In other words taking weak climbs unnecessarily will substantially reduce your average rate of climb and therefore your cross country speeds.

Clearly, in order to know the rate of climb you’re achieving you need a decent vario and a continuous averager. You don’t need any fancy instrumentation, a very basic system will do, but it needs to be working properly. When was the last time you checked your system for leaks? If you don’t know how to do it, for the cost of a pint of beer I’m sure either Roger or Iain would be prepared to explain to you how to do it. For a small fee they’ll even do it for you.

On any day there will tend to be a band at which the thermals are at their best. As a rule of thumb, thermals are weaker at half the height of cloud base and drop off a few hundred feet below cloud base. It is therefore prudent to try and avoid dropping below the height at which they are working well because you may find yourself having to scratch in a very weak thermal to get back into the working band. Picking up a new thermal low down may mean the thermal eventually builds into a really strong climb but is rarely worth the penalty of having to scratch in half a knot for 10 minutes. Therefore it is sometimes worth taking a ‘top-up’ in a slightly weaker thermal to ensure that you do not drop out of the working band. Conversely it is only worth climbing right up to cloud base if the thermal is as good as the best rates of climb for the day or the sky ahead is looking unappealing.

As you approach a cloud you need to plan your route under the cloud to give you the best chance of finding the climb. The lift may be marked by steps in the base, doming of the base or tendrils hanging down. You may also have noted that the climbs tend to be under the up wind side or sunny side. A ‘lazy S turn’ under the cloud that takes in the most likely place is the best bet. As you start to fly into lift bank gently towards the side of the lift (the up going wing). If the lift is increasing start a turn in that direction but if the lift is already falling off then gently explore round the other way. You should rarely need to do a full turn unless you feel a definite core or you are desperate for the climb. Remember each turn will cost you 20 seconds (worse if you turned into sink by mistake). 30 unnecessary turns over the course of a 150 km flight is the difference between doing 90 kph and the ton!

‘Topping up’ in a slightly weaker thermal before pressing on also leaves you with a greater choice of climbs. But it is rarely worth leaving a climb unless you have a choice of options ahead. If the sky ahead is looking ‘iffy’ think about whether it is worth ‘parking up’ for a while to see whether the weather will recycle.

If there are two possible routes ahead, do not only consider which one has the more promising looking clouds but consider which one will give the greater choice of climbs or ridges to use etc.

Following the energy is crucial to gaining on your speed. Deviating up to 20 degrees off track only adds about 5% to the total distance. On occasions it may be worth going as far as 60% or more off track over small distances to take you onto a better line.

Your choice of Macready setting or speed to fly will not only depend on the rate of climb of the next cloud but what the energy line looks like. It may be advantageous to fly slower following the energy and avoid having to turn so often. This technique is more advantageous in the big wing ships but can work well even for the ‘little stubbies’. As a rule of thumb if you are flying a first generation glass glider then you need to fly at 60 knots on a normal day, 70 knots on a good day, and 80 knots on a very good day. On average, the speed you are flying between thermals in knots will roughly equate to the speed in kph round the task. If you are flying a Discus or LS8 fully loaded with water you need to add approximately 15-20 knots onto these speeds.

There will tend to be a pattern for the day as to the best part of the clouds to follow for the best energy line e.g. upwind and/or up sun side. On a relatively still day the energy may be coming off the line between the shadow and sun. Ground features may trigger the energy lines such as the margin between forest and fields. Even on blue days there may well be ‘streeting’ so if you find yourself in a line of heavy sink try turning crosswind for a bit.

Starting in a comp is an art that is worth practising to get it right. It may only gain you one or two minutes but added together with all the other time-savers every little helps! Having a Garmin II on which you can program the start line is advantageous. If there is a height limit on the start then the new competition rules allow you to climb above the start height and then dive down through the start box. Having tried it for the first time this summer I have to confess that starting at close to VNE is almost as much fun as racing finishes but requires almost as much discipline to get the timing right in order to be doing almost VNE as close to going through the actual line as possible. If maximum start height is near cloud base then an alternative but much trickier technique is to build up speed in the thermal turn, so that instead of climbing you are just turning the energy into speed to cross the start line doing 100+ knots!

You will of course have been watching the sky ahead so that you are starting when you have a good energy line to follow. Hopefully you will have made a guestimate of how long you think the task is likely to take you and identified the time that you would like to start. Make sure you keep an eye on any changes in the weather and revise your ideal starting time if necessary.

Lastly, bear in mind that it is rarely advantageous to start early unless you are convinced that the task has been over set and that it will be a distance day. Letting other gliders start first will enable you to use them as thermal markers. (Don’t forget though that if you are in a lower handicapped glider they will soon pull away from you so under these circumstances it may be better to go with the earlier part of the field and use the faster gliders as they come past you.)

Hopefully everyone knows that if possible you should go into down wind turn points high and into wind turn points low to avoid having to climb when you are flying into wind. It is important to start looking at the clouds on the next leg well before you go round the turn point. Firstly because the clouds may look very different with the sun at a different angle and partly because you will need to be looking for the energy line as soon as you go round the turn.

Know your GPS and sort out which ever system you want to use for going round the turn. Personally I don’t program the route on the Garmin because it can automatically switch itself to the next leg before you have gone round the turn, leaving you wondering whether you have actually gone round it or not! I usually start my turn out of the turn point once the GPS reads less than 0.45 km to the turn to be absolutely sure of having a marker in the zone. With the rate of roll of the LS8 this usually means I have 3 or 4 points in the zone. If your GPS is set to 10 second logging, this is probably cutting it a bit fine. You must check that the GPS says that you are in the zone but don’t get so fixated with watching the GPS that you forget to look out - remember turn points can be very crowded bits of the sky!

Final glides are a compromise between being certain of getting home and not climbing unnecessarily high and having to waste energy. Fortunately final glides can be practised when coming back to site from local soaring. This will give you practise in the use of your final glide calculator and confidence in its accuracy. Using the calculator doesn’t absolve you from reading the sky ahead. If it looks like there is a good street to follow it may well be worth leaving the last climb below final glide height and pulling up onto glide along the street. Alternatively if you know you may come through heavy sink on the way (e.g. returning to the Mynd from the east on a westerly day) you may want to climb well above glide. The ideal finish uses up all your excess energy so that you cross the line and finish straight ahead without a go round. Try practising it at the Mynd when there is little traffic around. Remember to call your final glide to warn anyone else on circuit.

A lot of the British team training revolves around pair flying and team flying. Pair flying means flying in very close contact with one another and requires a lot of practise. It is also essential to be flying very similar performance gliders with pilots of similar levels of skill who want to fly together. If you don’t trust one another’s decision making then you won’t stay together very long. It is worth having a go at for fun but I can’t recommend it for most people. However team flying is much more useful. Listen in on 130.125 or 129.975 on any good cross country day and you’ll hear the pundits team flying. This may well be thoroughly irritating to the rest of us but is a very useful technique. Its principle benefits are finding thermals, centering thermals and a sort of micro-met service i.e. if one of the pair gets a bit ahead they are constantly passing back information about conditions ahead so that the person behind knows whether to move up or down a gear. A sort of radio short-hand is used to avoid clogging up the radio e.g. giving thermal strength in round figures implies you have just turned into a thermal whereas giving it to the decimal point implies you are established in a climb.

At the risk of name dropping, Brian Spreckley once told me that the difference between a good pilot and a very good pilot is how hard they work at it. This is particularly relevant in terms of milking every last bit of lift out of a thermal. It takes a lot of concentration to thermal well so don’t be tempted to use thermals to park up and eat your sandwiches! Try competing with other gliders when you join thermals at the Mynd and see if you can out climb them. This is not at the expense of thermal discipline but if you have good vertical separation then you can constantly adjust your circle to stay in the good lift and if you are clearly out-climbing the other glider hopefully they will shift their turn to be congruent with yours.

It is equally important to work hard in the glide. The glider should fly absolutely cleanly - does the nose wander very slightly when you are supposedly flying in a straight line? I confess mine does, but it shouldn’t. Equally the yaw string of a really good pilot looks like it is stuck to the canopy whether flying in the turn or in a straight line - does yours?

At the end of the day remember that you can only fly as fast as the weather conditions and your glider allows. Even the experts will go round a task at 50 kph on a duff day and if you are finding conditions difficult, the chances are that everyone else is as well! It’s also worth remembering that you won’t score anymore points once you’re on the deck so racing too hard and flying into the ground won’t help.

Above all - remember, GLIDING IS FUN!!!!!