Competition Diary Lasham 2001 Regional Gliding Championships by Douglas Knox Having only completed my silver distance qualifying flight last year, plus two further cross-country flights due to foot-and-mouth restrictions, I was a little surprised to be asked by the IBM Gliding Club chairman to fly in this year's regional championships. My total cross-country distance was, after all, less than 250 km. Apparently our glider '177' had been entered earlier in the year, but it turned out our usual competition pilots were unable to make the dates! At first I was somewhat reluctant, not only because of my relative lack of experience, but because my wife was expecting our second baby to arrive the week after the competition was scheduled to finish. I had visions of landing out in some far-flung farmer's field only to receive a desperate phone call for me to get to the hospital. Anyway, my wife being very understanding, she eventually persuaded me that it would be a good opportunity and suggested I give it a go; as long as enquiries were made to see if the hospital had a helipad and that I could charter a helicopter in an absolute emergency. This was tentatively arranged, as well as persuading Dennis Powell from the IBM Gliding Club to share the flying and crewing duties with me. It was all agreed and the next couple of weeks were spent organizing competition licenses, reading up on rules, and preparing the glider and ourselves. Day 1 - Saturday 28th July Having rigged the glider the evening before, Dennis and I arrived at Lasham at 8:30 to make final first-day preparations which always seem to take so long when you are preparing for a cross-country, let alone a competition. The wings were wiped clean of dew, batteries connected, daily inspection carried out and finally we established where the glider was to be placed on the competition 'grid'. There were 98 gliders competing in the Regional A and B classes as well as the UK National Open Class Championship. It can prove a little hectic with all those pilots towing their gliders out to the runway at roughly the same time. In fact it is actually very organized, once it was realised that individual markers had been placed out on the runway. Once this was done we were off to the briefing; map, pens and GPS in hand. Our task for the day turned out to be a 271.1km polygon from Lasham (which lies between Alton and Basingstoke), up to Membury service station (on the M4 east of Swindon,) Olney (near Bedford), Brackley (near Banbury) and back to Lasham - two and a half times further than I had flown in any one cross-country before. Dennis had already elected that I should fly first and that we would alternate on subsequent flyable days. So it was up to me to fly the task. Each day your position on the grid varies, to even out any start advantage, but today I was fairly near the front. Having been launched at 1pm, I soon found myself in a thermal and was very quickly up to cloud base, 4,500 ft above Lasham. It was going to be a good day. The thermal I found was ideally positioned just down track from the start line. So, drifting around at cloud base waiting for the start line to open, I soon found myself looking down from my vantage point and, after a very quick count, realised I was marking a thermal for more than 20 gliders. Airspace soon became somewhat busy, but you just had to get used to the additional lookout workload as this was going to be the same for the rest of the week. The start line having opened, I elected to go off on track early and was soon out of range of a straight glide back to Lasham. The thermals were pretty good on the first and second legs, averaging over 2.5 knots. The third and fourth legs were not so good at 0.6 and 1.6 knots respectively, but I still managed to stay high all the way round. Just east of Oxford, on the last leg, I got a thermal to 5100ft qfe Lasham, but this was to be my last for 53km until I was just east of Basingstoke, now only at 1200ft. Fortunately I picked up another sniff of a thermal at 5:30 which gave me another 500ft for a more comfortable final glide back to the finish line. It was great to be able to call "Lasham … 177 Motorway", which gives the finish marshals an indication that you will soon be arriving. Four minutes later I flew over the line at over 100 knots for my first competition finish. I was 19th on the day out of the B class fleet of 34 gliders and achieved an average speed of 65.9 kph. Day 2 - Sunday 29th July The task set was Marlborough, Didcot power station, Newbury racecourse. This was Dennis' Day and so I was in crew mode. Of course I had the glider all ready and waiting for him, maps drawn up and task entered into the GPS as he rolled up to the airfield just in time for the grid launch - I don't think so; he should be so lucky! No, just when you think you have everything organised something always happens; today it was a blown fuse and a dodgy connection on one of our batteries. I was destined to be soldering and burning my fingers that night. However, with backup battery installed, I launched Dennis off on his 150km task into a sky that was not looking quite as good as the day before. I'm not sure what is worse, flying a difficult task or waiting for either your pilot to call up "177 motorway" on the radio, or the worry that it's going to be a call over the tannoy saying, "Would the crew of 177 please come to control". As it happened, it was to be the latter. Dennis had landed out at Brimpton, a small airstrip near Reading, and was being offered cups of tea by the airfield staff whist waiting for an aerotow retrieve. Dennis, suitably refreshed, flew home to find that he hadn't done so badly after all. He had been eighth on the day having flown 127km of the task, the majority of the field having also landed out or given up and returned to Lasham without completing the task. Day 3 - Monday 30th July Lasham, Andover, Oxford East, Lasham - 164km. This was a day where I was handicapped by being placed at the back of the grid. Once the last glider is launched, the start line is opened 15 minutes later, but I just couldn't get a decent climb up to the start height of 3000ft. Having struggled around for 45 minutes I set off anyway from 2000ft agl and soon found myself just above 1000ft looking for fields on the way to Popham. Fortunately, it started to get better, but some high cirrus cloud could be seen rapidly coming up from the southwest which was starting to cover the Andover turning point. I had to get round this and into the blue skies again before I hit a field. Flying over a number of gliders already on the ground, I popped out into sunlight, having turned Andover, and was on my way to Oxford. But rounding the second turning point, I knew the high cover may still be advancing. Conditions actually deteriorated rapidly, having gone over RAF Benson. It was looking like there were going to be very few climbs left in the day; I really had to go east of track and that meant going under the 4500ft tma at Goring. My last climb was northeast of Goring, up to 3600ft above Lasham height (which is 620 ft asl), with 38km to go! Having confirmed the distance to Lasham from the GPS, assumed a 5kt headwind and played with 177's hand-held final glide calculator several times, I realised this was going to be very tight. It told me to fly at 57 kts, so I made sure that track and bearing to home on the GPS remained identical, and sat there on track with some apprehension. At the M3, I was at 1020ft, (as confirmed by studying my datalogger trace for the day.) Lasham was now looking much closer to the horizon than I would care to experience again. I called "Lasham... 177 Motorway... likely to be marginal", and carried on, selecting a few fields, admittedly with crops in, along the way. With much relief, I crossed the finish line at 150 ft, turned right, put the undercarriage down and landed. Dennis wandered over to a somewhat dazed pilot who vowed to leave a little more contingency on future flights - I'll take the extra 200 ft up to the TMA next time! The official results showed that we were 13th on the day at a speed of 52.2 kph. First and second places on the day were way ahead of the rest and achieved 75.7 kph and 66.7kph respectively, but then again, they must have been on the front of the grid! Day 4 - Tuesday 31st July Poor Dennis keeps on getting the short tasks: Lasham, Ashbury, Andover - 133km. He never complained about this, or the weather, once... well maybe just a couple of times then! It actually looked like it wouldn't be flyable on the day at all. In the end it got really very good. Dennis started off at 3:30 in the afternoon and was back again at an average speed of 73.7 kph. It was an excellent day for spectating. The Nationals, A & B classes were all back within an hour of each other. It was very impressive to watch them come over the finish line, set at the western end of the airfield on the day. Some of the nationals pilots ran the whole length of the airfield at less than 10ft and even then managed to pull up several hundred feet for their circuit. One pilot was seen to dip down into the valley two fields before Lasham, hop over a hedge and some power lines, then down again to continue and beat-up the airfield. I have photos to prove it... very impressive; can we have an open-class glider for the gliding club IBM please! Day 5 - Wednesday 1st August If you want the full story for this one then you'll have to give me a call or buy me a beer. To cut a very long story short, it was my opportunity for my first 300km flight: Lasham, Oxford East, Grafham Water (southwest of Huntingdon,) Didcot, Lasham - 301.2 km - if I'd made it. All was going so well until I reached Milton Keynes on the return leg, when I just couldn't find any more lift. My impending first land out caused me to look for a field nice and early, after which I spent a good 15 minutes struggling around in bits of lift and reduced sink. The field I selected was quite large, flat and looked to be nice green cut grass. It turned out that it was so green as it had been slurried two days before! Having landed uneventfully, I set off in search of the landowner, towards some buildings two fields away. It turned out these housed pigs, so consequently due to foot-and-mouth the farmer was not best pleased that I had landed there. Setting of his rather loud air siren intruder alarm system probably didn't help much either as I knocked on an office door to see if anyone was in! He certainly wasn't going to let me have an aerotow retrieve and we had to agree for the crew to jet-wash car and trailer even before using the disinfectant at the entrance to the farm. Anyway, to cut the story short, a long wait until dark, a dodgy midnight breakfast, a puncture and a long drive to Lasham to drop of the glider I arrived at home at 2:45am, somewhat smelly and in need of a shower. I was 31st on the day having covered 206km by air and a few more by driven by Dennis and Dave Sinclair, who was a very welcome assistant with the retrieve. Thanks, chaps. Thursday 2nd and Friday 3rd August These days were scrubbed due to cloud cover and a distinct lack of thermals. The days were spent constructively repairing trailer wheels, batteries, snoozing and sadly catching up on my work in-basket! Day 6 - Saturday 4th August Not only do I make a complete 'pigs-ear' of it landing at a pig farm on my first 300km opportunity, but Dennis is rewarded with another short flight; an out-and-return to Abingdon Bridge - 112km in rather dubious looking conditions. The supposed window of opportunity was early in the day so Dennis was sent off into strong westerly conditions on his way to Abingdon at 11:45. There were reports almost immediately of land outs and consequently I had expectations of a drive to Oxfordshire. Sixteen of the B class did get back but, after what seemed ages after the last glider was accounted for by control, I got the phone call - Dennis had just landed at RAF Odiham just down the road. I was impressed; it hadn't looked even vaguely soarable for the previous hour and a half. Although Odiham, offered Dennis a winch launch, this was declined as 177 probably wouldn't have made it back to Lasham against the wind. So the military police duly entertained him in the guardhouse for all of 5 minutes before I turned up at the gates, trailer in tow. Day 7 - Sunday 5th August Guess what - Douglas gets the long flight again and another crack at a '300': Lasham, Shaftesbury, Frome, Thame Airfield, Chieveley - 302.3km. Start height was 3,600ft on the day. Having finally found out how to draw a 12km start line perpendicular to track on the GPS, I hoped to make a good start. I had excess height so dived down at 130 kts parallel to the start line, turned 90 degrees right, dipped under 3600 and pulled up 300 or so feet straight under a cloud street all the way to Bullington Cross on the A34. Unfortunately, the cloud street ended there and became a huge blue hole causing me to divert south towards Romsey, round the Southampton-controlled area, just to stay up in the air. I eventually got back on track at Salisbury, but due to a number of scratchy low points this had set me back considerably. The rest of the flight was fairly uneventful as the conditions just got better and better, with thermals up to 5800 ft asl. The visibility was also absolutely superb; flying over Longleat between the first and second turning points you could easily see all the way to Didcot power station, 85 km away - the added bonus being a clear line of cumulus to get you there - this 113km leg being achieved at a speed of 84.6kph. Thame to Chieveley was somewhat more difficult as it went very blue for a short while, but once I had rounded the turning point and picked up a final climb at Thatcham to 4900 ft, the final glide of 32km was flown at 132kph, with the help of some spectacular curtain cloud that was visibly ascending, along the way. Unfortunately, due to the early hole, my average speed was 57.2kph but this was enough for 18th on the day and a rather pleasing 16th for the competition. Unfortunately, this didn't count as a 'badge' flight as the task had more than three turning points. At least I know I have it in me to do it again. Given my earlier concerns at entering the competition at all, I was just rather pleased not to be last; but to finish in the top half was very pleasing. Summarising the week, I can certainly say that it pushed my gliding boundaries. My recommendation is to enter a competition as soon after getting your 'Silver-C' as possible. It's certainly worth sharing with an experienced competition pilot like Dennis, not only to show you the ropes, but also it's physically and mentally exhausting. However, what I wouldn't recommend is taking on such an undertaking when your partner or wife is nine-months pregnant. A call from hospital from the pig farm would not have been good! This little article is dedicated to my as yet unborn little cherub who clearly didn't want its father to miss the big day. He, or she, at the time of writing is now 13 days overdue.... Editor's note: The following Glossary may be of help to those new to gliding agl = above ground level; measurement of the actual height of the glider above the ground at any moment, i.e. its 'ground clearance' (compare 'qfe') GPS = Global Positioning System - calcualtes and displays continuous accurate positional information - see also GPS kts = knots = nautical miles per hour. Airspeed and variometer instruments are calibrated in knots km = kilometres - the normal unit of measurement for distance flown kph = kilometres per hour - unit of measurement for speed of cross-country flights qfe = altimeter setting for 'field elevation', so the altimeter shows the height of the aircraft above the airfield; vital information for final glide calculation (compare 'agl') TMA = Terminal Manoeuvring Area - controlled airspace around airports. London TMA (LTMA) extends west of Reading and impinges on final glides from the north or northeast to Lasham

Early-season Cross-country by Richard Whitaker March 5, 2000 - During the week it rained, blew and rained. Typical UK weather for late February/early March. However on Friday morning the last cold front cleared and the forecasters promised that a ridge would build, accompanied by strong north-westerlies. There was room for cautious optimism... I had some errands to run and arrived at Lasham after 11am. I rigged 177 for the first time for three months, and as usual it took a while to get organised. However at 13:10 the rope was finally attached and I was away. Alan Meredith decided that I needed some thermalling practice on tow, and after a couple of steep formation turns I pulled off at 1800ft in 3kt. The thermal took me to cloudbase at 3500ft, and I set off into wind. The street ended close to Basingstoke, but there was a superb street a little further to the West, so I flew across the gap and quickly connected again near Popham. Once close to cloudbase I selected "Goto MEM" on the GPS and started dolphining into the 20kt+ wind. There was very little need for turning, I just kept flying into wind and took a topup every now and again when I hit significant lift. The cloudbase was rising all the time and soon went over 4,000ft. There was a hiccup at Hungerford, where a discontinuity had formed in the street and the best lift moved from the southwest edge of the cloud to the northeast. After that, it was straight to Membury. I heard Jon Bastin call at Ross on Wye but decided not to go further than Membury as the cloud was looking waffly and the fields were very wet. Shortly afterwards a glider called landing at Staverton so I felt I had made a good decision! The run back to Lasham took about 20 minutes, and as I approached Basingstoke at 3pm and 4500ft there was clearly plenty of soaring time left, so I elected to continue to Petersfield. There was quite a long gap in between but I could see an excellent climb over the town. It was certainly a good one - 2500ft to 5000ft in 4kt average, with up to 8kt indicated. This was the northwest end of another street, and I continued as far as Goodwood racecourse, where the view was spectacular - 80nm of coastline from Poole Harbour to Beachy Head! Having turned the racecourse, it was time for the long flight home into wind - I soared the street for as long as possible, then took a straight glide from cloudbase close to Selborne, arriving back with just enough height for a beat-up. The season had got off to a splendid start, with an exhilirating 174km in 2hr 45min.