Friday 15 July 2011

Passenger to pilot windrushers style - June - July 2011

Well I have been pretty quiet recently, busy job schedule and a new baby arrival has seen my gliding activities take a hit. I have maintained currency flying when ever possible but as we are approaching mid July I would have liked to have been XC endorsed and on my way towards my silver by now, but as yet I still need to do the XC navigation exercise.

I had a flight on the 4th June in the Astir DFR, just a 2000ft Aetotow with the weather not being great I had 13mins of flight time, but I aced the landing. On the 20th I flew OUGC's astir FEF up the winch, I didn't manage to get away and landing back at the field I found that the wheel brake didn't work well and then seized up so it was declared U/S and I went home.

I was back at the airfield on the 14th of July after the misses, seeing me go stir crazy, gave me a hall pass. I got the to airfield nice and early knowing that a visiting pilot wanted the Astir for his 50k I had settled on flying the K8. I launched at 10am to 1400ft but was quickly down to circuit height, on the downwind leg and committed to landing I bumped into 2+kts up, I bypassed it and landed. 10mins later I took another launch and got 1600ft this time and immediately headed for the same spot the lift was at earlier. I ran into 1-2kts up and screwed away gradually gaining height, at 3000ft I was watching the club K13's trying to join me with out much success but it seemed the large aerotow grid was convinced and started to launch. At 4000ft I decided to make the 10k trip to upper heyford, arriving with plenty of height to spare I circled for a bit and headed back. I did a few stalls on the way back and arrived near the airfield at 2500ft, I was greeted with a stack of K13s and glass ships in a thermal and joined amongst them, very quickly however the K8 zipped up the middle of the thermal and I was soon on top of the pile as we all broke off and headed in different directions. After an hour and with a sore butt I popped the brakes and headed back. Later that afternoon with currency in mind I decided to aerotow the K8 to 2k for a quick flight, but continuing good conditions saw me at 5000ft flying alongside a k13 carrying our CEO and his student, they headed for silverstone but I bumped into the big red line on the map that exists for non XC pilots and headed back landing 43mins after launch.

Great day and I have to say despite the sore but my affection for the little K8 has grown a little more, ok it cant penetrate into wind but it climbs really well and is so easy to fly. Visiting Astir man had declared Lasham for his silver distance which would have been over 80K but he landed out somewhere short of that but hopefully still over 50K

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