November Newsletter

Chairman’s Contribution................................................................................................................. 2

Treasurer’s Notes.......................................................................................................................... 2

Permission To Fly.......................................................................................................................... 2

CFI’s Bits..................................................................................................................................... 3

From the Flying Field...................................................................................................................... 3

Task Week.................................................................................................................................... 4

Weather Wise............................................................................................................................... 8

Tow Lines................................................................................................................................... 11

Task Week Results...................................................................................................................... 12

Winter Flying............................................................................................................................... 12

Chairman’s Contribution

Apart from one week in mid July, the early and middle parts of the season have been pretty miserable, so it is wonderful to be able to report a brilliant task week, and also some spectacular flying in the days following it.

John Parry (director), helped by the CFI (task setter) and Dominic Haughton (met), put on a superb show for us, including one 300 km triangle (Buckingham - Birdlip) which resulted in no fewer than ten gliders getting round the task, including Rod Hawley’s K6.

Ten 300s in one day must surely be a record for the club, but it is just an example of how our cross country flying has improved over the last ten years or so. The improvement is mainly in flying skills, since many of the gliders are actually the same ones that were around a decade ago.

In addition to the completed tasks during the week there were a large number of landouts, accomplished without any damage, a tribute to our members’ airmanship.

Task week was won by our old friend and supporter Liz Sparrow (nee Bertoya), by just four points from the CFI. Liz got a huge round of applause at the prize giving.

Another measure of our increasing confidence is the fact that the MGC Team won the Rockpolishers league, for the first time in many years (I believe 16), and competed in the final. This was a great achievement, due in part to the skills of Jon Hall who managed the team. Sadly the weather restricted the final to just one day and we came 5^th overall.

I believe that our members have flown more 500 km tasks this season, most of which had the worst weather I can remember, than all the previous years put together. If this is correct, it just goes to illustrate the points I made above.

Finally the work on the ‘glider lifter’ in the hangar is progressing, and you should see some tangible signs very shortly. It was very noticeable on Euroglide that every club we visited in Germany and France had gliders suspended from the roof, including a Stemme motorglider and several ASH 25s and Nimbus 4s. We will be able to have both the K23s rigged full time, as well as having the tug and the motorglider in the hangar.

Meanwhile I hope the better weather continues and enables you all to enjoy some good soaring.

Please contact me by Email, jfack@mcmail.com, or by leaving a message on 01426 954208 if there is anything about the club you wish to discuss.

Permission To Fly

The club has a long-standing rule that every pilot is required to obtain the prior permission of the duty instructor to fly on the day. Every other BGA club has the same rule, and there are good reasons for it.

Early solo pilots are always keen to seek out the duty instructor and discuss the flying, and some have to be positively cajoled into flying solo. On the other hand, the CFI will ask mainly as a courtesy. There is a large group of pilots of varying abilities in between the early solo and the CFI. The rule applies to everybody, but it will have to apply in different ways.

Asking for permission often seems to be a bit of a formality and even to be unnecessary; after all, glider pilots are a unique group of individuals, and gliding is a great way for them to express their freedom when released from gravity’s bond to soar with the birds. Who needs rules when the rest of our lives are tangled up with them and gives expensive lawyers material to argue the case? Who really needs to ask for permission to fly, especially if you have a Gold badge and a couple of Diamonds? Is the duty instructor being pernickety when he or she reminds you that you forgot to ask, just as the cable is about to be attached?

The duty instructor along with the day’s team has the important task of organising the day’s operation so that everyone :

This is a managerial role that has to be combined with flying training and the supervision of solo flying. The request for permission will assist the duty instructor in doing his or her best to fulfill that role. If you forget, the day’s flying may be worse both for you and others.

The request is never a formality. The duty instructor will want to know what your intentions are and will have to assess, in the space of a few seconds, whether or not you should fly. If there is an accident, the instructor will be contributing towards the discussion on what went wrong, and may personally face criticism. You will need to tell the instructor whether you are in check and what card you hold, unless the instructor knows this. If you were not at the morning’s briefing, you will want to know what circuit pattern is being flown and what else was discussed earlier, including any likely changes in the weather. If you are a visitor, you will need to be introduced to the site and briefed about Mynd flying. All of you will need to say what your intentions are, whether to fly locally or leave the area, perhaps on a badge flight.

CFI’s Bits

Launch Marshalling - A Change

In the May issue I talked about the function of good launch marshalling, its importance to the smooth running of the launch point, the profitability of the club, and the mechanics of our weekends; members taking their turn, doing their bit to help other members fly. Every other month I go over the stage chart with Janet, adding new members and trying to keep up with the progress of others, and the results are very encouraging; lots of new launch marshals! In fact, there are many names that for some strange reason never have appeared on the launch marshal list.

As a members club we owe it to the new members to help them with their progress and integration, and one good way of doing this is launch marshalling; sharing with experienced members who already know the ropes and are used to giving a small amount of time back in return for all the help they have had from others during their progress.

So from now on all red stage pilots will become eligible for launch marshal duty. If you have not done it before, ask for a briefing before your first duty day, and then when you have done one or two ask an instructor to sign it off on your red card. Taking all flying members stage red and above, and excluding instructors, tug pilots and winchmen, we have 72 members. Spread over the year, two launch marshals per weekend day and bank holiday would mean each person doing less than four days a year.

The next launch marshal duty list will show six months. Check for your dates as soon as you receive it, and please make every effort to turn up whatever the weather. If however you can not make the day allotted to you, arrange a swap early and let the office know so that the master copy can be amended.

Cable Fumbles

Pete and Colin now have an operational procedure to use when gathering in out of position cable. This will at times involve the use of many hands, so please make yourselves available when asked. For your information the procedure is printed below.

Operational Procedure For Retrieving a Cable That Has Fallen Out of Position

· The winchman in consultation with the duty instructor, will be in charge of operations.

· Members at the launch point will assist the winchman to man the length of out-of-position cable. They will be instructed to keep on the outside of the loop.

· Only when the cable is clear of any obstacle and lookouts give the all clear will the winchman initiate movement of the cable.

Cross-Country Flights

Please remember to record all distance and height flights in the blue cross-country book. I am thinking of a new recording system for cross-countries for next year (one record instead of the three different records at present), but meanwhile use the existing one: it is from the blue book that most of the annual trophy awards are decided.

From the Flying Field

Welcome to new members George Bradshaw, Alexander Jenkins, Michael Kellett, Gordon Kerr (old member returning to us), Aloke Pluck and David Sandells.

Lots of flying and achievements in the last couple of months, among them congratulations to: John Bell, Tim Connor, Alan Harrington (solo); Walter Baumann, Trevor Duligall, Mike Greenwood, Geoff Makin, James Moore, Toby Neal, John Roberts (Silver distance); Mike Greenwood (Silver height); Ian McArthur, John Roberts (duration); Richard Billany completing all three parts of his Silver; Richard Langford, Alistair Lewis, David Rance (Gold distance); Dominic Haughton (Diamond goal and distance). Stephen Lewis has become an Assistant Instructor. John Stuart and Paul Garnham now have their ratings to teach field selection and navigation in the motor glider and Chris Ellis has renewed his. Marcus Rowson has soloed in helicopters at Shawbury. Iain Evans won the Open Class at the Northern Regionals, and Paul Stanley and Jeff Rowson came 5^th at the Western Regionals, winning one day outright. We sent a team to the Inter-Club League final at Husbands Bosworth, having won Rockpolishers, and came 5^th out of 7, with only one competition day.

I have lost track of the number of 300, 400 and 500 km flights flown recently, there have been so many. Notably good weather was enjoyed from Sunday 16th - Wednesday 19^th July, yielding 500 km flights for Iain Evans, Nick Heriz-Smith (he did two on consecutive days) and Paul Stanley with Jeff Rowson, and 400 km for Rod Hawley in his K6E, having practised with a 300 km the day before, and over 400 km for Roger Andrews. Oh and the course had a good week, they must have got tired of being told, “It isn’t always like this…” On 11^th August Rose Johnson launched saying she couldn’t afford to land out as she was on call for work and then flew more than 400 km. Clive Crocker completed his first cross-country (100 km) since his Silver, and Richard Langford followed John Stuart round a fast 100 km. Then we had the excellent first half of Task Week, with those ten 300 km flights on 20^th August. And it was true Debbie, the days after Task Week were better, with more of those big flights on 29^th and 30^th, Richard Langford flying 300 km and Rose flying 500 km on 29^th and Iain and Dominic did 500 km the next day while Paul Stanley with Sarah Butler relaxed round a mere 400 km or so. Nick with Richard Hinley rounded things off with another 300 km in the Duo on 3^rd September, a Sunday of many cross-countries and some landouts, and 18 aerotows.

I didn’t fly on the Monday of Task Week, and had a pleasant day hanging round while a competition day unfolded, something I’d not witnessed for a couple of years due to flying or being in a field. The calm competency of the team as they went about their tasks impressed me. It seems to have notched up a level or two in the last few years and compares favourably with the Regionals I’ve seen, and the Inter-Club League final.

Task Week

Friday 18th Aug

In the traditional pre-Task Week ritual, two nights ago the man on the BBC, eyes twinkling with sheer excitement, presented his forecast with even greater exuberance than usual. Behind him was a banner with the words ‘severe weather warning’ and something about Saturday and the West Country on it.

Liz Sparrow has arrived with her new toy, a Pegasus. When asked when she got it she replied “Do you remember that really good week back in March? It was the week after!”

Saturday 19th August

It rained early this morning then cleared. Wind 10-15 knots westerly. Promises to be a showery, unstable day.

The weather turned out far better than forecast with the showers failing to materialise. The sky was dotted with well formed cu throughout the afternoon. Two pilots landed out and another ran for home from Bishop’s Castle having found one of the large areas of sink reported.

The day was won by Dominic Haughton who attributes his victory to being able to choose his own weather. Julian Fack was second, only three points behind Dominic.

Colin Calderhead set the trigraph ‘BIS’ into his GPS. Fortunately he didn’t take the directions it gave too literally and therefore didn’t end up en route to Bishop Auckland.

Occasionally in gliding a rare combination of circumstances, such as weather and day length, as well as other unforeseen elements can conspire to produce that epic and memorable flight which will be talked about for many years to come. In the case of Walter Baumann, who attempted his Silver distance to Bidford in the K8, they produced an epic and memorable retrieve which will be talked about...

Walter landed in a perfectly normal looking farmer’s field near junction 6 of the M5 by Worcester. He found the farmer who was ‘batty’ so sought out and found a less batty farmer. When asked for directions so that the crew could find the glider, he refused to give any but offered to drive Walter to the main road via a myriad of convoluted lanes and tracks. Walter grabbed something to write on, a tatty sheet of card, and attempted as best he could to draw a map which would enable him to retrace his route to the glider.

The farmer left him in a lay-by facing a lengthy wait. A young lady was sitting in a car parked nearby.

Meanwhile back on the Mynd, David D’Arcy (Walter’s crew) was caught in a dilemma, that is he faced certain castration if he failed to show up at a family wedding reception so he asked Nigel and Mac to help out.

Our heroes attempted to start Walter’s car only to find that, in his haste to set off, he’d left the ignition on and flattened his battery. Hurriedly, they hooked the trailer on to Mac’s BMW, cancelled the meal they had ordered here and set off.

Back in the lay-by Walter approached the lady in the car to find out if she knew where the nearest pub was. She responded by shutting up the car windows and calling the police.

Apart from the trailer tow hitch coming loose at one point, the journey to the lay-by was pretty uneventful, which was more than can be said for the trek to find the K8. As the sun sank below the trees, the shortcomings of Walter’s map became all too apparent. An hour later they were re-united with the K8. Normally our tale would have ended with a de-rig in the dark, a meal and a late arrival back on the hill, however David was rapidly running out of time; the carving knife was looming large in his thoughts. Realising that stopping for a meal could cost David dearly, Nigel called Sue and asked her to order a chinese take-away in Church Stretton so they could drop him off quickly. On arriving in Church Stretton, Walter heroically leapt out of the car and into the chinese. A minute later he re-appeared empty handed and looking a bit sheepish.

Sunday 20th August

The forecast was better than yesterday’s. The BBC forecast showers later, Dominic however, insisted in briefing that there would be NO rain.

Julian was first back but Dominic and Nick had left much later. The day was better than yesterday with about half the field completing the task, including Rod Hawley in his K6E. The two Pauls completed the 500 task, the Duo being the last glider to return at about quarter past six.

Several pieces of silver were claimed. James Moore went to Nympsfield in the ASW19 (882) for his Silver distance and got an aerotow retrieve. Being of a cautious disposition he elected to stay on tow until he was absolutely sure that he would get back. I’m not sure of his exact height when he got back but his return to the Mynd was heralded by a radio call asking what cloudbase was! We learned later in the bar that he pulled off at 7,000 feet over Ludlow.

Mike Greenwood did a 100 km triangle with a Silver distance from Shelton water tower to Leominster. His trailer was U/S so he didn’t want to be far away from home. Orch and John Warren did a wonderful job on his trailer wiring during the afternoon.

Undeterred by yesterday’s adventure Walter set off once again for Bidford in the K8. He landed out near Alton Towers. Don’t ask!

Geoff Makin went to Shennington for his distance. The bad news is that his flight lasted 4 hours and 47 minutes. Geoff’s aerotow retrieve home involved a liberal interpretation of the term day. Snippets heard on the radio included “Follow me back” and “Can you see the clubhouse lights yet?” Ten pilots got round the 300 km task, which could be a club record for a single day’s achievements. There were some Diamond goals including Alasdair Lewis (Hornet).

On the task Nick Heriz (154) came third, Dominic was second and the day was won by Liz Sparrow who now leads overall.

Julian reported a good strong aromatic ‘cow shit’ thermal over the Clee Hills which gave a 12 knot average once he’d centred in the smelliest bit.

David Rance was venting his frustrations about herons. He’s lost quite a few fish to them recently from his fish farm. Although they are despised by fish farmers and garden pond owners alike, they are a protected species. In vexatious times such as this it is nice to find somebody who is willing to lend a sympathetic ear and to empathise with your plight. David got Den and Keith.

Monday 21st August

A highly unstable airmass was forecast with massive showers and thunderstorms, therefore it seemed unlikely at first that we would get a task in. A re-brief was called for at 12:00.

12 o’clock. The showers hadn’t materialised, at least not here. Shrewsbury looked a bit mucky but the air over Wales was superb. For only the second time in ten years of flying at the Mynd I was able to see Cader Idris as a textured object, not just in silhouette. We could also see the wind farm with the naked eye. An open-air briefing was held and Nick decided he would set a task. Rig and re-brief at 13:00.

Several non-starters as conditions deteriorated and some large showers were beginning to form, notably over the Clee Hills. Nick Heriz took a winch launch and came back for an aerotow re-light. Chris Harris landed out at Welshpool in CEA.

It was a CFI’s day with only Nick Heriz and Liz Sparrow completing the task. Liz commented afterwards that she would rather do a 300 on a good day than scratch around in grot like that.

Result: 1st Nick Heriz, 2^nd Liz Sparrow (still in lead overall),3^rd Chris Ellis.

I used to believe that the best thing about crewing for a keen fettler and gadget enthusiast was that the nearest I would ever get to rain sodden, mud splattered, interesting retrieves would be to write about other people’s. That was until about three hours ago.

Julian re-visited a field which I mentioned in my write up two years ago, a large one which then contained two naked young ladies. Today there were no ladies; just a sodden path to the field. The heavens opened at a critical moment so we got stuck and wet. Julian let the van’s front tyres right down (it works on trials cars) and managed to work it out of the mire. Since we didn’t have a footpump and were miles from the nearest garage we were lucky that the farmer had a compressor and a helpful disposition. And that dear reader is how Julian’s trailer and van came to acquire their new mottled livery.

Although we did get some showers, on hearing the evening news we realised that we had got off lightly, there had been 5 inches of snow in Yorkshire and North Wales, plus torrential rain, hail, flooding and twisters in other parts of the country.

Guess what? We’re short of water. The diesel pump used to bring water up from the east face is threatening to meet its maker.

Tuesday 22nd August

Started off with a fog bank in the bottom of the valley and a couple of people reporting having driven through fog to get here. The forecast is good for today and better still for tomorrow and Thursday. There are rumours that the nationals and regionals flying this week might get in nine contest days, in which case they may be decided by stamina as much as pilot skill.

Julian and I were jointly awarded a bottle of ‘Mudweiser’ after last night’s retrieve. Unfortunately somebody had drunk the bottle’s original contents.

Paul Garnham and Richard Bennett have set off on another 500 km task in the Duo Discus. Richard, displaying an impeccable sense of timing, arrived here just after the glider had been rigged and readied, so was able to step straight into the cockpit and go!

Jon Hall set off into Wales for a remote start 300 km and landed out. The tug was despatched to re-launch him and he set off. Later in the day he landed out in a field next to Edgehill. Once again the tug was despatched, enabling Jon to make the biggest contribution to aerotow revenue in one day since I stopped flying competitive aerobatics.

Ian MacArther and John Roberts got their 5 hours and David D’Arcy completed his first closed circuit task.

Paul Garnham and Richard Bennett eventually landed near Craven Arms having turned Cheltenham, Edgehill, Grantham and Gaydon, flying 435 km.

The wind had been a light easterly during the day but had picked up to 28 mph by the evening.

Results: 1^st Dominic Haughton, 2^nd Nick Heriz-Smith, 3^rd Liz Sparrow (still in lead overall).

Wednesday 23rd August

Started with a 20 knot easterly and very poor visibility in all directions. The depression in the western approaches, which brought the easterly wind, is deepening but slowly moving away. The wind is forecast to drop. A stationary cloudbank to the west indicated east wind wave. The motor glider has reported total cloud cover to the east with tops at 4000 feet. The Clees were barely visible through the murk.

Welsh Git phoned Nick from Lasham to report that they would be sending 100 gliders into this area with the nationals turning Welshpool and the regionals turning Knighton.

As winch launching in such wind would be unsafe and it would take about three hours to launch the grid by aerotow, Nick and John declined to set a scoring task. Instead they would award a bottle of wine for the best height gain above a Silver height. Shortly afterwards the wave collapsed.

In briefing Richard Bennett was awarded a pot of jam for his jammy timing. Jon Hall was awarded a gold card for single-handedly putting the tug back into profit with his three aerotows yesterday, the last of which was rumoured to have cost in excess of £120.

Several pilots have been summoned to a steward’s enquiry regarding alleged airspace violations, including Dominic and Nick. Liz offered to share her wine with JP if he could penalise them out of 1st and 2nd places.

Some logger traces, including Julian’s, were found to contain anomalies around Cheltenham. Is this in any way connected with the new GCHQ complex under construction?

During the afternoon the visibility improved and pilots flying locally reported excellent conditions. However given that we have had four out of four task days with more good weather forecast, a rest day was welcomed.

Just before 3 o’clock a Lashamite dropped out of the sky - well you couldn’t call it a circuit! Surprisingly he was the only one. We expected a few more given the strong easterly and had thought about limiting them to three aerotows; to be auctioned.

Late in the afternoon Dominic filled his LS8 with water and set off on a fast 100 km. He missed getting back by 300 feet, landing “in Paul Garnham’s back garden”.

Thursday 24th August

At briefing Dominic was given a prize for being the Met Man who got a good day duff and then ran out of day and landed out. He was given a bag of marbles.

The task is 251 km, Mynd, Cirencester Quarry, Moreton-In-The-Marsh, Cheltenham, Mynd.

After yesterday’s steward’s enquiry regarding airspace infringements, John decided not to penalise anybody this time but added that he would do so mercilessly in any future cases.

Although Derek has got the diesel pump on the east face working, the water situation is still critical so showers have been banned for 24 hours to allow the tanks to replenish. Given the hot weather which is forecast, we should be generating a few thermals of our own by tomorrow. Alison Rowson asked that returning pilots call on the radio when dumping water so that we can stand underneath.

Rod Hawley took an early launch and soon discovered that the day wasn’t developing as well as had been expected. He landed back, announced that it was hot, unpleasant and hard work; he decided not to go again.

At about half past one, Nick announced a fall back task of Hay-on-Wye, Tenbury Wells, Mynd, 126 km.

Julian decided to dump his water at the launch point. Rod and I didn’t like to see good resources being wasted so we dived under his wing for an impromptu shower.

Everybody landed out. Nick won the day as he was the only pilot to round both TPs. Bob Rice, in the Vega, was second.

Nick had a demoralising moment when, while waiting by the roadside, he was passed by Ann in the Parry Discovery heading in the wrong direction with the wrong trailer. Ann had gone for Liz Sparrow (girls in Pegases sticking together!). Would Nick have been even more depressed if he had realised that his retrieve crew (John Parry) was at that moment circling over him in the Falke - allegedly checking the access to the field. Eventually he went for him in Jeff Rowson’s new Discovery, falling in love with the five-cylinder version in the process.

Friday 25th August

The morning was warm and sunny but with a 30 knot easterly. The first task was to de-rig the remaining gliders which had been left out. Dominic’s most optimistic sounding would produce a day no better than yesterday and in reality it was likely to be more stable so the day was scrubbed.

Tonight we should see storms coming up from France and tomorrow will be wet, with Sunday and Monday being good. Although the competition will finish on Sunday an informal task will be set on Monday for those who want one.

Dominic and Neal Clements were jointly awarded the book of Thoughts for the day for glider pilots, written out by Sue Holmes.

Chris Harris awarded Richard Langford the Richard Langford height conversion chart. They had a 400 foot difference of opinion about the height at which Richard pulled off aerotow yesterday.

Later in the day a small party went ten pin bowling in Shrewsbury. Bald Eagle won the day in spite of complaining that his trousers were too tight.

A quiet evening in the clubhouse, apart from the 30-40 knot easterly wind, as many people have gone down to John and Jan Stuart’s house warming.

The storms started at about half past eleven, producing the most spectacular display I have seen on the Mynd, lasting well over three hours. A cluster of separate storm cells were triggering each other off producing prolonged multiple flashes, which lit the whole hill and valley up for several seconds at a time. The accompanying heavy rain had Derek scurrying around the next morning to remove the ‘water shortage’ signs for fear of getting lynched.

Saturday 26th August

Barbara set us off on her treasure hunt around Asterton, Wentnor, Norbury and other local areas, which for many of us ‘grockles’ have hitherto remained unexplored. From the nature of some of the clues it became clear that there are devious minds at work behind the kitchen hatch.

Twelve teams set off. Two dropped out, one due to a breakdown and another due to a cricket match. The winners were the ‘2 Johns & Dick Ed’ team who amassed 152 points out of a possible 186 in spite of the efforts of certain rivals to cover up clue yielding manhole covers. They were not awarded extra marks for the unidentified viscous fluid oozing from within their paper.

Den and Keith have bought a lifelike replica heron and placed it in a conspicuous position in David Rance’s fish farm.

Sunday 27th August

The seaweed is not looking so good. Dominic believes that there will be convection but it will be capped at about 5000 feet, leading to spreadout. There may be showers. Re-brief at 13:00.

At one o’clock the day was scrubbed. After the very positive forecasts which had been given for Sunday earlier in the week, we all felt a sense of anti-climax; that this wasn’t a proper way to end Task Week. All the competitors shared a feeling of disappointment, none more so than Liz whose victory was assured by the decision to scrub.

Our pilots at the Inter-Club League fared better. Tasks were set for pundit (240 km), intermediate (190 km) and novice (140 km). Nick (pundit) and Paul Stanley (intermediate) completed their tasks finishing 5^th and 4^th respectively. Colin Calderhead flew as novice. He landed out and came 6^th.

The evening’s entertainment was provided once again for us by Eddie’s Oompah band, with some impromptu help from his syndicate partners in 882.

David Rance switched his bird scarer on this morning and everything bar one heron flew off. It took him about half a second to realise the ‘heron’ was a phoney and another half second to realise that Den had something to do with it.

Monday 28th August

Chris awarded Dominic with a jumbo thermometer and two crystal balls to help with his forecasting in future. John Parry awarded Chris with a ‘Tigger’ mask.

Bottles of wine for the Telephone Belles and the proceeds of the whip round for the kitchen staff.

Commemorative whisky glasses were presented to Nick, Dominic and John for their organisational roles. Colin Calderhead was awarded a tankard for the best performance by a novice pilot.

The runner up with 3017 points was Nick Heriz-Smith who was presented with a tankard. The winner with 3021 points was Liz Sparrow who got a tankard and the Task Week shield.

Today was forecast to be thermic, showers were beginning to form by briefing. An informal task of Tim’s triangle (Shelton water tower, Mortimer’s Cross) was set for those who wanted it.

A few attempted the task but as Shrewsbury looked particularly showery for most of the day it is doubtful that anybody got to Shelton water tower. An incursion of sea air through the Cheshire gap brought some phenomenal lift locally in the afternoon, with some paragliders getting sucked up into the cloud. According to one paraglider pilot, who landed at the south end of our airfield rather than risk flying through an area of strong lift to return to their field, this is a serious danger. They simply cannot descend fast enough to overcome the effects of a powerful thermal.

The Inter-Club League final was scrubbed at Hus Boz. Our team finished 5^th out of 7.

Welsh Git returned from Lasham having finished 35^th out of 50 in the 15 metre Nationals. He finished 9^th on one day.

Special Mentions:

Derek Platt When not flying the motor glider about, he is to be found wallowing in a bog on the east face working tirelessly to replenish the water supply. Somebody forgot to tell him that he’s supposed to be an old age pensioner.

The K8 trailer This week it’s seen more outings than the New Labour cabinet and the Welsh Assembly put together.

Martin McCurdie Normally to be found attending most diligently to the sartorial requirements of the people of Ludlow. This week he set new standards in Mynd couture by wearing his codpiece on his head.

John Parry Like the coelacanth, he has found his true niche in the ecosystem. Was he born with an Icom round his neck and wearing a ‘Comp Director’s’ hat?

Weather Wise

Task Week has become a high point in the calendar since I joined the MGC four years ago. I can put down most of my progress in cross–country flying to the Task Week formula which daily serves up achievable goals on a plate. The distillation of our pundits’ experience in task setting has allowed me to concentrate on flying cross-country with increasing confidence.

For those who have not been involved in Task Week, a team of three sets cross-country tasks daily over nine days. Competitors are scored in the same way as regional competitions. Of the three wise men, the Met-man is responsible for forecasting the soaring conditions, the Task Setter sets a suitable course for the expected conditions and the abilities of the pilots, and the Competition Director looks after the scoring and many other aspects of getting the fleet out and back safely.

Last year’s Met-man, Iain Evans, was unable to repeat the performance this year as he was competing in the15 metre Nationals. Instead the Competition Director and Task Setter asked if I would have a go. I’m not sure what evidence of competence John and Nick had when they made this request; being observed arriving midweek once during the year on a good day with a plan for a cross-country flight seemed insufficient. However after a few protestations had been made, in a feeble attempt to protect my reputation if things went badly wrong, I accepted custodianship of the MGC Met-man’s tools, a fir cone, a piece of wet seaweed, and an Internet connection. I then set about learning something about gliding meteorology, my findings are described here to encourage others!

My induction started with a tutorial given by Iain that involved studying arcane charts that seemed to hold the secrets. These tephigram charts show the properties of the air at certain locations and are constructed from atmospheric soundings recorded twice daily by various weather stations. The few books[1] I have read on the soaring meteorology usually conclude with a chapter attempting to explain the use of the Tephigram (Temperature-Phi diagram). While this all looked very scientific and interesting it was of no use without a daily supply of the diagrams, until recently tephigrams were available only to the secret society of weathermen. I skipped over these chapters.

However in the wired world all things are available to all men, so after the tutorial on reading the runes from Iain, and the passing on of the secret URLs I was ready to experiment. There is no attempt to explain theory here, just a description of the step by step methods for predicting soaring conditions that I was introduced to, and practised during Task Week. Hopefully this will be enough to allow others to try the same. In the next newsletter I hope to be describing and illustrating the day-by-day weather forecasts made during Task Week and you can judge whether the methods worked!

DIY Met

The stations that record tephigrams are located at colourfully named places that few will recognise. Fortunately the web is designed for pointing and clicking so a map of the sites provides your route to happiness without knowing any more about these places. Find Jack Harrison’s website from the Mynd site (http://www.longmynd.com ) ‘weather link’ and click ‘weather’ then ‘soundings’ (or from the BGA site). A map will appear with recording stations, click a site to get their midnight (or mid-day) sounding by return. For post mortem analysis of a particular day an archive of past soundings is also available.

Somewhere on the Internet there is rumoured to be a site that gives air trajectories that indicate where air that is now in one place was at various times in the past. This is probably useful for deciding which midnight tephigram is likely to have sampled the air that arrives at your gliding club 12 hours later. However each midnight chart is also annotated with the wind direction at various heights during the ascent and these can give an idea of where that air is blowing to, and how fast.

In the two weeks before Task Week I tried to use the charts to predict cloudbase and cloud heights based on forecast temperature, and then annotated the charts when the cumulus formed. I used a tutorial on tephigram interpretation (http://www.nemas.net/edu/skewt/skewt.html) and an explanation of symbols (http://weather.unisys.com/upper_air/skew/details.html) when needed. To my surprise on more than one occasion the predictions showed that there may be some truth in the mystical methods after all.

In doing all this it helped me to think of the tephigram as three charts one on top of the other. The first deals with how ‘dry’ air behaves before it forms clouds, the second with the conditions dictating when dry air becomes wet air (cloud formation), and the third deals with convection in saturated air (clouds). After choosing the appropriate sounding (http://phd.nl/aviation/wx has a huge selection of charts to help decide wind direction etc.) the basic construction went something like this.

1. Decide what temperature the air at ground level will get to (BBC forecast etc.) - say 19°C.

2. Plot this on the temperature scale for ground level (1000mb is close enough). See figure 1.

3. From this point draw the first line up and left, parallel to the solid trend lines for dry air.

This gives the behaviour (temperature with height) of any air heated at ground level and rising as a thermal.

Then find when the actual air measured at ground level during the sounding becomes saturated as it rises in a thermal and, cooling, causes any moisture to condense.

4. Estimate where the left hand sounding line (it shows the temperature at which the air becomes saturated with water) might be at ground level (1000mb) during the day (remember this was recorded at midnight when moisture may have been settling at ground level). This seems best taken as a guestimate based on ignoring most of the ‘kink to the right’ seen at low levels on many charts. See figure 2.

5. Draw a second line parallel to the diagonal (grey) dotted lines from this point. (Hint: If this line passes the kink in the (red) ‘air parcel’ line it confirms your guestimate (4) is the same as the meteorologist making the tephigram). See figure 2.

Where the two lines meet a thermal made of the observed air, if it rises due to heating at ground level, will condense to form cloud. This construction gives cloudbase. See figure 3.

The point where the two lines meet indicates the properties of the air as it forms clouds. Any further rising due to the (now saturated air) being warmer than the surrounding air, will follow the set of lines representing the properties of saturated air.

6. draw a third line follow the curving (green) trend lines up until it crosses the right hand sounding line. See figure 4.

At this point the air that rose from the ground is at the same temperature of the surrounding air, and will not rise any more. This is the limit of the saturated air, that is the tops of clouds.

The spacing between the right hand sounding curve and the lines drawn for dry and saturated air (grey area) qualitatively indicates thermal strength at any height. See figure 4. Of course the construction can also be made for lower temperatures to find the temperature needed to start convection, and to see how convection, cloudbase and cloudtops are likely to develop as temperatures rise to the forecast maximum.

And here’s one I prepared earlier

The example is from the second day of Task Week (Sunday 20^th), and the complete chart is shown below (figure 5).

The day’s forecasting started by looking at http://www.phd.nl/aviation/wx where I checked the Bracknell midnight synoptic chart, and the USAF 06:00 satellite analysis. These were the starting point for getting a general picture of what had actually happened during the night. Visible and infrared (you too can see in the dark) satellite images from the same website seemed to show no insidious high cloud to spoil the fun.

Based on wind direction the Hillsborough midnight tephigram (http://www-das.uwyo.edu/upperair/eu.html via Jack Harrison) was favoured to represent the day’s air and a trigger temperature (the temperature need to start convection) of about 15°C predicted. The interpretation was that as the air temperature climbed convection would increase steadily. At 18°C the first cumulus would form but at 19°C they would start to tower up. Not having a direct measure of thermal strength from the chart is something of a problem, but the relative strength of convection can be guessed by comparison with other charts. This was going to be stronger than the day before and by the time the air got to the maximum forecast 21°C the cumulus would be up to about 15,000 feet, by then the thermal strength would be very much better than the day before.

The task set was 311 km Mynd-Buckingham-Birdlip-Mynd, average climbs over the whole course for the fastest competitors were around 4 knots giving speeds of around 90 kph for the racers. Cloudbase at 13:00 was 4500 feet, 5300 feet by 16:00. Ten of the fleet got around with three Diamond badges gained. QED!

Tow Lines

In spite of the slow start due to the engine rebuild we are set to do over 600 tows before the end of September. This is in part due to the new policy of doing trial lessons by tow unless easily soarable. Though this ostensibly adds £6 over two winch launches to the cost of a trial lesson, it has the benefits outlined below:

1. Professionalism. Punters pay a lot for their lesson, we should give value for money. Many are intimidated by winch launching.

2. Teachability. In my experience customers are less fazed than by winch launching and more receptive to instructional input.

3. Passenger comfort. 5-10 minutes of thermalling prior to starting to teach isn’t good either.

4. Efficiency. Glider utilisation decreases if conditions are unsoarable, doing two winch circuits takes considerably longer than one aerotow flight and is less cost effective.

5. Evening parties. Less ground handling and hanging around as it’s all over quicker.

As an aside we also seem to sell far more tows when doing trial lessons by tow, don’t ask me why.

Total tows to date are 574 plus 70 tow equivalents in retrieve and off tow flying. I estimate we lost around 200 tows due to the downtime between September and March.

Task Week Results

I would like to thank all who helped in any way to make Task Week so successful. When you are flying it is easy to forget the people who are patiently waiting for the phone ring so that they can swing into action taking your details, locating your position and passing this on to your retrieve crew; or sitting with a radio logging start and finish times; or running around ensuring that two launch methods are used to achieve maximum launch rate; there are so many jobs that nobody notices when they are done well, but everybody notices when they are done badly!

If you have any thoughts about any changes we might want to consider for next year please let me know as soon as possible while it is all still fresh in our minds.

Winter Flying

Apart from Saturday and Sunday flying which will continue as usual with a duty crew each day, the committee is hoping to organise up to two days mid-week flying. Thursday and Friday are possibilities but depend on ongoing negotiations with Shrewsbury School and Aberyswyth University.

The list of potential mid-week flyers which Janet has organised appears very encouraging and I hope that both they and other members will take advantage of any opportunities. However, the treasurer will remind us that last year mid-week flying was a long way short of financial viability and a greater effort will be needed by the above mentioned keen members to make it work this year.

I would also like to point out that any group of members who can organise a tame tuggie who can also act as a number one can aerotow on a regular or irregular basis. Paul Stanley, Chris Harris and Paul Garnham are all regular attenders and keen flyers who would I am sure happily oblige. A good reason to get aerotow cleared before winter if not already cleared!

The eventual days for mid-week flying will be posted on the notice board so keep an eye open.

[1] Meteorology for Glider Pilots, C.E. “Wally” Wallington

Cross-Country Soaring, Helmut Reichmann

Meteorology and Flight, Bradbury