A cool flight

April 9^th 2005
Lasham-Cocking-Hastings-Bembridge-lasham
301k

By Graham Garnett

At the 9.30 'compass' task briefing our brave, innovative?! CFI Gordon set this rather unlikely task, the third leg of which, if flown on track would put you some miles out to sea for about 60k along the leg! I laughed and remembered the Devil's Dyke turn point he set during the last regionals (particularly the live webcam pictures at briefing which showed a gale and heavy rain!) and the retrieve stories... The unusual task was set for a number of reasons. Firstly there was lots of moisture in the air (but less in the south east) and so spread out was certain later on, secondly the air mass was very unstable although it would be soarable under the 8/8ths spread out because of this. Thirdly there was a 22-25kt wind forecast at flying altitudes from the north north west which was due to back during the day, cloud streets were certain. Finally there was a warm front to the north west moving towards us and spoiling the day in that direction. Phew! I'm sure it was more complicated than that but I don't do technical, that's why I go to the briefings...Gordon also said that it would probably be soarable out to sea in that wind direction, with no chance of a sea breeze.

However the glider appeared to be mine for the day, as Tim Browning (whose day it was on the syndicate rota) couldn't make it and no one else had grabbed it before me. I phoned Kim to see what he was planning for the day. He was coming to Lasham and would be happy to jump into the back seat of the mighty Nimbus with me in the front and my name and account number on the log! (His turn next time!) He put his PDA with it's moving map and airspace information in the back with him, he knows how it works and can actually read what it says and we agreed that he would prompt the track direction to me as we went along. You know, left 20 degrees, right 10, that sort of thing. We did have a current 1/2 million chart with us, honestly.

We towed out to runway 34 along with lots of other people, with Gordon and Bob Bickers doing a great job of making order from the chaos. (There is not much room down there for two launch points and lots of big and little gliders) I haven't taken off from that direction for a long time and was frankly a little apprehensive in a (very, with me in it) heavy Nimbus. Oh boy there was no need to worry! We were directly into a strong wind (as you would be operating from there) and were off the ground in no time and over the airfield boundary at 300ft or so, it was rough and bumpy but that's all part of the fun!

Andy Aveling in the tug towed us to a thermal and we released at 1500ft straight into 3.5kts. We climbed to about 3200', moved upwind to get to the start zone and had a look at the sky on track. There were the forecast streets going from the north west to the south east, not on track for our first, control point type turn on the Downs at Cocking but better for the second leg. We started. We didn't turn. We just ran down the streets at 75kts jumping from one to the next pulling up in the lift, pushing in the sink and arrived at Cocking ridiculously fast still at about 3200'. We turned left and pointed at Hastings a long way to the east. The sky looked fantastic and we ran down the streets hopping from one to the next to stay on track. Kim had told me not to stop for less than 5kts so I didn't.

It seemed for miles that each cloud that we headed for looked better than the one we had just left. We quickly passed Parham bouncing a thermal marked by a white Dart, (I haven't seen one of those for ages, my Dad had one when they were a hot ship!) Eastwards we flew just a few miles north of the coast, past Worthing and Brighton keeping out of the way of Shoreham, on and on hardly having to turn. Kim had a turn at flying and looking at the next Cumulus commented that 'there will be 6kts under that' Sure enough. 6kts to a few hundred feet short of cloudbase when the climb rate started to drop off. How did he know? Was it a lucky guess? And how does he manage to stay in such good air afterwards? So that's why he is flying the Europeans in the open class this year then!

We saw V7 and 304 about 20k from the turn, with me flying again we ran with 304 for a short time. He took a more northerly route going towards Hastings, we stayed by the coast. I guess we stopped and turned in maybe 3 or 4 thermals before arriving at Hastings from Cocking and as we turned Kim laughed, I said that I hadn't thought that my 180 degree turn was that funny and he replied that he laughed because his computer said we had averaged 140kph on that leg! It was a strong wind! Now we had to get back into that gale.

Conditions were just as good on the way back to start with, good strong thermals and fine streeting. We left the short wings behind as we stuck a few miles north of the coast and just repeated what we had done on the way out until that is we reached the eastern edge of Brighton. We started to see the first signs of the forecasted spread out.

Now we had a choice, a northerly pointing street or some great looking clouds out to sea a few miles, as we were still high I'd guess 3500' we decided to head out to sea. The conditions here about 2 or 3 miles south of Brighton were the best yet great cores 4-5kts everywhere, cloud base had gone up and we ended up running at 85kts just below the base at a little over 5000' QNH. Kim took over again as I remembered that my camera phone was in my pocket and I snapped away at Brighton pier from an unusual angle in a glider! Kim and I both resolved to buy a pocket sized digital camera soon! By the way, the cu looked fantastic for as far out to sea as we could see (if you see what I mean!) After running for maybe 10k along the coast, out to sea we crossed back over the land and started to worry about the ever increasing spread out.

At Angmering (where i used to grass track race in pre gliding days) and down to perhaps 2500' under 8/8ths spread out we found a welcome 4kts which took us back to about 3700'. We were gliding back on track towards Bembridge ('left a bit' calls from the back seat!) maintaining height more or less under the crud and heading for the sun on the ground at Selsey Bill when we both kinda noticed at the same time that the air was smooth and the vario was flickering on zero, + 1/2 + a little more. So at 50kts we just sat there, on track heading for sun and in week wave for maybe 8 or 10k, we did a beat on the leading edge of a cloud, decided that we should just push on and sure enough we got to the coast again still at about 3700'. By the way our average speed was down to 100kph now.

The next decision, press on to Bembridge or chicken out? Kim checked the computer which told us that we would arrive at Bembridge at 2200' We decided, Go for it! We started crossing from almost the point of Selsey Bill under probably 6-7/8ths spread out but with a couple of likely looking cells over the water on track. 65kts and into the gale about 30-40 degrees to the right of our nose. Ho hum.

The air was nice and gentle by which I mean there was no lift but equally there was no sink! Until we reached those cells, no problem, slowed up, waffled along in some reasonable lift got another 200' or so on the margin and kept going. I haven't managed to measure the crossing, left my map in the glider, (honestly!) but I reckon it was about 20-25k. Look for yourself. Half way across to the island we began to see that we might have an interesting time when we got there. It was under 8/8ths spread out and we couldn't at first see anything that might give us a lift. We started talking about what we would do if we had to start the engine.

As we approached the coast we could see some active looking clouds under the spread out about 5 or 6k beyond Bembridge, maybe our lifeline? To make us feel better there was sun on the ground north of Hayling Island and Portsmouth as the spread out dispersed. But we had to get there first!

We arrived overhead Bembridge at 2300'(these computers are cleaver aren't they?) pleased to see that the gliding club was active, took the turn point and pressed on for the clouds. We got to them at about 1800' and found 2kts, which we gratefully took and climbed to 3000'ft all the time getting blown back towards the wrong coast! We pushed into wind, Kim flying again now as I had a drink and a rest! Kim found another 2kts at Ryde, climbed back to 3000' and headed out over the Solent. After a slow crossing and a bit of a fiddle to climb, still just out of reach of the good looking cu inland, we were saved again by the mighty average British thermal, 2kts! We pointed the nose at Lasham (and that wind) and glid into the good weather again. From there it was simple to get home and I was happy to get 1000' over the glide in that wind, with more pulling up in some more excellent thermals. One thing though, as we approached Lasham from the south we hit the strongest sink we had encountered all day and Kim mentioned that this had happened to him before in similar wind conditions and nearly caught him out on that occasion. We were fine though with our margin and after a very sensible circuit and a spirited final approach with the curl over bouncing us around, we landed for a nice and well deserved cup of tea!

Task completed at 88kph.

It was a really interesting and memorable flight, which is why I thought I'd send this write up to the web master (and BB twisted my arm!)  I think that we were the only ones to complete the task that day. (Did anyone else?) Kim is great to fly with, it's a constant learning curve for me. I wouldn't have attempted that sea crossing on my own I can tell you!