It’s the gliding competition season yet again and I’m kicking it off by competing with Steve in the Lasham Regionals this year alongside the open Class Nationals and the 15 Metre Class Nationals. There are a lot of glider pilots! We’re hoping for some great weather following last week’s high temperatures, looking at the BBC Weather however…. it doesn’t look at all promising.
As I’d been travelling on business in the USA the previous week, Steve had already set up our base at Lasham with the caravan and a small tent to sleep in that we’d borrowed from Michael.
We arrived on Friday evening and rigged the glider in preparation for the competition. We now have a Cirrus 75, which is a 16m standard glider that we’d purchased directly after the end of the Women’s World Gliding Championships in an effort that I could fly in a similar handicapped glider as the other world-class pilots in future competitions. We’ve managed to fly the Cirrus on a few occasions this year, but this would be the first competition that we’d have the opportunity to really push it (and us) to the limits. When we bought it, the surface finish was in a particularly poor state, so we decided to pay for the whole glider to be refinished in paint, however, this could not be completed in time prior to the competition season, so just the top surface of the wings was completed in an attempt to provide a smooth, drag-free surface. Not even the ailerons were re-finished because that would have entailed re-weighing of the glider, so it does look rather peculiar at the moment. But we shall have to live with it until the end of the gliding season now.
Saturday dawned rather misty and certainly not flyable as I walked Django. Briefing was delayed until 10:30 and a first-day briefing was provided. The Met Man gave us all an unpromising forecast for the day; we all left the briefing rather demoralised.
A shout over the tanoy had the Open Class and 15m Class scrubbed and the Regionals (Classes A and B) scurrying to the grid in what still appeared to be rather unlikely conditions. At briefing, they set an 80km task for the Regionals from Lasham to Petersfield, Whitchurch, round LA5 and home (LAS-PTW-WH2-LA5-LAS).
Still with grey skies and a cloudbase barely reaching 2000ft, class A was launched. After a 20 minutes gap, Class B were launched into an even less promising sky. There were a few relights, not as many as I’d expected and I returned back to the caravan to listen to Steve on the radio.
I managed to do the washing up and blow up a few balloons (for the Jubilee decorations!) when Steve called up to say he was landing back on the airfield. He wasn’t the first, nor the last. There were a handful of landouts, but everyone else returned to the airfield; it was a non-comp day.
So a scrub-down of the glider and refitting of the covers took place. That evening, we decided to eat in the restaurant at Lasham where we both had a very enjoyable roast beef dinner - there are positives in every day; you just have to find them!
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