Day 5, wind
No thunderstorms last night, but much more wind today and temps down to 21°C.
BP grids with me today, not much quicker. By 9:30 a rather sporting 400km task out east was published and BP had marked her chart and loaded her Oudie. Briefing produced two more in addition the military published a surprise Notam Class D at Marham, and another a bit later also at Marham. The annoying thing is that they must have known about this days or even weeks before.
BP is near the back of the grid today so I can relax a little. Then just before 1100, a rebrief at the front of grid is called with an instant fall back to Task C. BP only had to do a bit of colouring to redo her chart.
The wind gets windier, and the EB28 self launches up hill.
Turnpoints:Leighton Buzzard NE - Spalding - King's Lynn - Buckingham - Dunstable Airfield
Task distance: 295.38 km
BP launches at about 1240 and is milling about, the start gate has opened. BP is down to 1200 feet, so a relight is on the cards.
Just returned from the relight, goes smoothly except everything decides to save and so a shutdown and restart of all the toys is required. This takes about three minutes, meanwhile the tug has moseyed up and is blaring away patiently. At last all is ready and a cadet runs the wing, managing to go miles. I thanked him prettily, omitting to tell him that 5 steps from a pensioner is all she normally gets.
She seems to be climbing albeit reluctantly. The max start height is 3800 QFE, BP is at 3100, but there are still a few gliders who have not yet started.
246 at zero4, good she has started. Now for a stressful pm worrying.
Went for a snooze when she was under 1800', wake up to find just about to round the first TP at Spalding. She was only just at 3000' which is a bit low considering that of the rest of the task 150km is mostly into wind, however she has climbed to 4900' and set off crosswind 36km to Kings Lynn.
1623, BP has rounded Kings Lynn and is abeam Peterborough. Unfortunately the wind has got up and the climbs are only just strong enough to overcome the headwind. If she is lucky when she finishes a climb she can fly into wind on the same track as the thermal and gain a bit that way, otherwise she has just lost 5km in the climb.
BP grids with me today, not much quicker. By 9:30 a rather sporting 400km task out east was published and BP had marked her chart and loaded her Oudie. Briefing produced two more in addition the military published a surprise Notam Class D at Marham, and another a bit later also at Marham. The annoying thing is that they must have known about this days or even weeks before.
BP is near the back of the grid today so I can relax a little. Then just before 1100, a rebrief at the front of grid is called with an instant fall back to Task C. BP only had to do a bit of colouring to redo her chart.
The wind gets windier, and the EB28 self launches up hill.
Turnpoints:Leighton Buzzard NE - Spalding - King's Lynn - Buckingham - Dunstable Airfield
Task distance: 295.38 km
BP launches at about 1240 and is milling about, the start gate has opened. BP is down to 1200 feet, so a relight is on the cards.
Just returned from the relight, goes smoothly except everything decides to save and so a shutdown and restart of all the toys is required. This takes about three minutes, meanwhile the tug has moseyed up and is blaring away patiently. At last all is ready and a cadet runs the wing, managing to go miles. I thanked him prettily, omitting to tell him that 5 steps from a pensioner is all she normally gets.
She seems to be climbing albeit reluctantly. The max start height is 3800 QFE, BP is at 3100, but there are still a few gliders who have not yet started.
246 at zero4, good she has started. Now for a stressful pm worrying.
Went for a snooze when she was under 1800', wake up to find just about to round the first TP at Spalding. She was only just at 3000' which is a bit low considering that of the rest of the task 150km is mostly into wind, however she has climbed to 4900' and set off crosswind 36km to Kings Lynn.
1623, BP has rounded Kings Lynn and is abeam Peterborough. Unfortunately the wind has got up and the climbs are only just strong enough to overcome the headwind. If she is lucky when she finishes a climb she can fly into wind on the same track as the thermal and gain a bit that way, otherwise she has just lost 5km in the climb.
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