Not much flying in November and December, a total of six short circuit flights in K13's when weather and planning for Christmas allowed.
In what seems to be a tradition news years day saw the hanger doors opened and a K13 towed onto the field. about six of us turned up for some fun including our CFI, airfield manager and several other team members. Dave Watt was seen with his new cranium cam,
All though in the end he actually forgot to switch it to record so we didn't see them in action.
Leading up to the 7th of Jan I had been keeping an eye on the weather for that weekend to see which day would have the least cloud cover, expected 5/8 on sat and 6-7/8 on Sunday. Saturday looked OK but the wind was strong out of the North, until Fridays forecast when the wind swung westward meaning we could have wave on Saturday. I arrived at the club early, DI'd the Astir and headed out onto the field. Several coffees and an windy winch launch brought us to nearly lunch time and I decided to take a 4k tow into the blue to see what I could find. We headed west towards heyford and the old disused airbase and releasing at 4k over the eastern end of the runway I quickly realised that the eVario did not agree with the mechanical one. The eVario was showing a regular downward trend while the mechanical was showing 1-2kts up, the altimeter confirmed I was climbing so I turned off the eVario, which I suspect is having TE issues. Ahead I could see a wave bar but as I was climbing in the blue I decided to track across wind where I was. I no time at all I was passing 4500ft and as I turned 180 to head back along the bar I saw the lenticular forming to my east, a short tack to get me just above the leni was rewarded with 3kts. the next 25mins were spent exploring the western half of my 5nm from the airfield limit. After working my way to just short of 6500ft the lift was down to a knot and the cloud had started to fill in, mindful that I did not have the turn and slip working I picked my way down to 4000ft back below cloud base. I finished off the hour long flight with a final glide exercise, starting at 2k over heyford I ran the 5nm miles back to the airfield aiming to get there as quickly as possible with a 1000ft remaining didn't take long downwind with a ground speed of ~120knots.
Head over to U tube and search for lhitchins you can access my page and take a look at the 1 hour long flight in HD.
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