19 March 2011 - I finally flew my Mosquito!

One of the other British Team members contacted me by email during the week to find out if I would be flying at the weekend.  Because I was on duty Aerotowing at the gliding club (Sandhill Farm), I couldn’t join Liz and Ayala at Lasham for the take off.  So it was decided that they would take off from Lasham and I’d take off from Sandhill and we’d meet up somewhere around the task which was Hungerford North (HNN) and Andover (AND).

Steve and I rigged the Mosquito, I set the instruments and prepared the map and was airborne before any other club member had even got their glider to the launch point.  The conditions were fairly blue with the occasional haze cap, but I did find several thermals that were 2.5 – 3 knots average and after an hour of local soaring, I decided to make a run for Hungerford North, which is the M4 Motorway junction.  As I neared the turning point, I began to lose height and dropped to below 2,000ft.  I decided to head towards the town itself, a detour from track, but it paid off and I climbed at 3.5 knots to 3,000ft enabling me to leave the thermal, turn the turning point and head of towards Andover.  Bu this time, I had heard Liz and Ayala on the radio and called them to find out where they were and it turned out that we were all heading towards Andover at the same time which was great!  We met up in a thermal over the town and I turned the turning point before deciding to head towards Lasham as I’d already turned Hungerford.

The conditions heading towards Basingstoke were OK, but not fantastic and I arrived at Basingstoke without sufficient height to clear the town or to land at Lasham.  I spent a good 20 minutes searching the town and flying in zero sink before a small thermal began to burble.  I worked hard to find the core and eventually found sufficient height for a safe glide to Lasham.  I had already determined that it would not be possible to glide back to Sandhill Farm and had therefore called Steve out to retrieve me, so he was already on his way with the trailer. 

Liz and Ayala also successfully made it back to Lasham and came to meet me on the landing area as I was inspecting my rather flat tailwheel…another task for the week ahead.  At least I’d completed 83km and had ‘brushed off the cross country cobwebs’.  All the instruments in the cockpit were working fine which was a relief as both the artificial horizon and the turn and slip had had to be removed in preparation for the World Championships as cloud flying is forbidden.