21 June – the longest day, and the longest flight so far…
The dawned (actually it doesn’t, it just seems to remain light all the time…) and Steve said ‘you won’t be flying today’, it looked so rubbish.
At briefing, they set an Assigned Area Task of 3 hours with the basic turning points of start Alpha – Iresjon – Enaker – Bodas – Arboga. So far we’ve been doing flights of 130 or 150 km which are giving me a problem because of the glider handicap – I need a longer flight where I can use the flaps and glide further in order to be to shake off the other gliders. Today’s task might be that opportunity, although I tend to struggle with AATs.
The glider was already on the front of the Club Class grid, so with a launch scheduled at 11:30, I quickly programmed the LX. Liz, Ayala and I were talking tactics, when Steve and Mel suddenly decided to shift the FLARM and LX aerials and wires once more in my cockpit. Fortunately, the competition Director delayed the launch by 30 minutes until 12:00, otherwise I wouldn’t have been ready to go.
I was launched first into a low 2400ft cloud base and spent the next 2 hours just staying airborne by exploring the sky for lift. The cloud base had risen slowly to 4000ft, but the problem now was that there were huge squally rain showers to the North crossing directly across our track out. The time to start was now or never. We started just before 14:00 and immediately as we headed North I had a problem as I had to fly through the rain. Sure enough, as usual, with wet wings I lost a good 1000ft on the others and struggled for the whole of the next two legs trying to gain as much height as Liz and Ayala. We went into the first sector as far as we dared before turning downwind (Westerly 18 knots) towards the second sector.
Part way along the second leg, I was leading and Liz and Ayala had a good climb behind me as I headed for a different cloud and I lost them. I did however get a very good climb under the cloud I’d chosen and by now another couple of gliders were on my tail. I headed back on track and caught up with Liz and Ayala again.
Towards the third sector I lost Liz and Ayala once more as I headed out further West than them along with two leading French pilots. As we entered the third sector, I suddenly had grave doubts about the airspace and convinced myself that the French had led me into airspace – if this is the case, then I’d be disqualified for the day. I lost confidence and decided to leave the sector at that point and head for home. I turned 50 degrees off track and headed downwind towards the only clouds I thought that there might be a climb under, because to the East there were huge rain showers building. I could hear Liz, Ayala, Fran and Gill all ahead of me, but couldn’t see any of them until I got under the cloud where I saw Gill in 59. I climbed with her and several others until I could climb no more and set off in the dark distance towards home.
There was one street a long way off and I could hear Liz and Ayala climbing there. The Westerly wind was quite strong now (18 knots) and was blowing me towards Stockholm airspace. I eventually contacted the East end of the cloud street, but trouble was ahead because it was raining on me again. I got lower, and lower and at 1500 feet I called up to say I was struggling and because there was so much chatter on the British frequency, I had to turn the volume right down so I could concentrate. I got a small bubble of lift and someone else came in and joined me, but it was no good. I tried again as did the other pilot in different bubbles, and as I struggled with my broken 1 knot, I didn’t appreciate that the other pilot had actually found a better climb and had managed to climb away successfully. I had picked a field in which to land, but I wasn’t ready to give up just yet. Slowly I climbed but each time I did so, I was drifting towards restricted airspace and I had to keep leaving the climbs and pushing upwind. On top of this it kept raining on me. Eventually, persistence paid off and I slowly climbed through 2000ft, 3000ft, 4000ft and 5000ft then flew directly into wind down the cloud street. I could see rain at the end of the street and to my left, the direction I needed to go, another huge squall line. But I thought that there might be the possibility of running down the street I was under, bear left and fly to the West side of the other squall and hopefully have enough height to get home.
I flew down the street in tremendous lift. I flew faster, then the rain hit, and boy was it heavy. It was bouncing off the glider, through the vent in the front and splashing on my face. I had to continue. Conserving height where possible I pulled up, but the cloud bas was coming down to meet me and I had to dive beneath the cloud. I had 5000ft and was 900ft under glide.
To my left was the huge squall and to the West there was sunshine, no thermals as the rain had passed through, but there was the chance that it was warming up the air.
I could hear Liz, Ayala and Gill in difficulties. First Ayala thought she may land out, then Liz did land out. I continued on down…4000ft, 3000ft. The radio had now gone silent. I was 300ft under the glide slope but I continued on. I had 20 km to run, 10 km to run but still couldn’t see the airfield because I was at such a low angle. There was a bubble of lift and I turned, no it didn’t work. I called Brit Base and told them the distance and height I had. With the strength of the wind, I couldn’t make it. Steve called me and said I should take whatever lift I could find…well I was going to do that anyway. I called 5km and Steve asked if I could make the finish ring. I didn’t think so, just then I got a burst of lift and turned. I was at 600ft and the lift was broken, but I persisted and I turned it into 2 knots, 3 knots and climbed to 1000ft – I could now make it in. I changed frequencies to the Arboga finish frequency and informed them I was at 3km and would do a direct landing. The wind was a good 15 – 20 knots crosswind and I just managed to hold it on the runway.
The time was 18:15 and I’d been airborne for 6 hours and 15 minutes. I was the last Club Class glider to make it home. The Director came up to me and gave me a big hug – the Stewards and officials had been watching me as I started to turn in the thermal so low.
I finished 8th for the day…much better than my previous flight, and I even managed to pull up 6 places overall to a more respectable 12th.
No comments:
Post a Comment