Astir G-DDPO





Barograph of my first and longest flight of the day



I've attached my logger files below, just in case you're a data nerd like me.





Sutton Bank provides conditions for pilots of all persuasions; winter offers up more hill soaring and wave conditions, whilst in the summer season the thermals can start popping and providing the method of circling height gain that most people (I assume) typically associate with the sport of gliding.I first started learning to fly just as the 2016 season started and I didn't manage to get along to as many days as I perhaps could have, so consequently during the height of that season, I spent more time practising basic flying skills rather than advanced soaring techniques. As my personal flying ability was improving, the weather was descending into winter and so by the time I was ready to start learning these things the options to do so were far more limited. I have therefore spent the off-season working on the areas of my flying that conditions allowed, including some winching, ridge flying and the odd tricky approach into significant headwind; but no real thermal soaring. I had the ground brief, but that was almost a year ago.Having kept one eye on the developing weather conditions throughout the week (as I have become accustomed to doing), I decided that Saturday was going to be the most likely day to do some flying, which is better as it means I get to spend Sunday doing very little and catching up on sofa time and doing stuff around the house. When I go flying, I don't turn up to the airfield with a plan; I arrive with several plans in my head and depending on the availability of instructors, aircraft and conditions I choose the one that I think will help me get the most out of the day. The aim is always to inch ever closer to the Bronze Badge with cross country endorsement that will mean I can apply for my glider pilots licence and in turn, embark on adventures beyond the relative safety of Sutton base.The morning briefing, followed by a look at the flying list (and of course out of the window) suggested that I might have the opportunity to get back to flying single-seaters after a couple of weekends spent in the club K-21s practising winch launch failures and being thwarted by rain showers from taking my first solo launch on a wire. There was only one other contender for G-DDPO and they graciously offered to let me fly first.Once the launch point was set up and the fleet put on line, the two-seaters got going immediately. Each flight taking either a trial lesson or scout for a short air experience flight. I was looking for something longer and so I waited on the ground to see if the conditions would get going enough to allow the possibility of some extended flight times. At around 11:00am, it started to look promising and a couple of people suggested that it would be a good time to launch. The log indicated that flight times so far had all been sub 20 minutes, but since nobody had really been trying to stay up, that told me little. One recently landed instructor and student indicated that conditions might be starting to develop into something that was soarable.So with the Astir DI'd, and with the help of the scout party who were waiting for their aircraft to return, I pulled my aircraft onto the flight line, strapped myself in and went through my checks.Steve, today's duty instructor and the person who I happened to have done most of my winter flying with, wandered over as I was getting ready to go."There's not a big waiting list for this aircraft, just one other person, so take an hour or an hour and a half, and go and have fun!"I'm not sure what face I pulled in response to that. I nodded to confirm my understanding, but internally my brain was dying to say "Sure, but we both know I'll be back here in 20 minutes, right?"Everyone on the ground helped out as usual to start the launch. The tug plane eased forward to take up the slack, the wing-runner prepared to go, and presumably the signaller was ready too - but I can't see him or her from where I'm sitting. Stick on the backstop and left hand on the cable release, I got ready for the all-out.Take-off was as uneventful as could possibly be. On Runway 02, the glider eased off the ground just after it crossed the winch track, I held steady at around ten feet, shortly afterwards the tug plane became airborne and we started to ascend in the kind of tight formation that naturally results from being attached to each other by a steel cable.I had already decided to take two thousand feet from the tow, which is a shade under three thousand over the Vale, but the extra height doesn't count for anything other than good views since my eventual aim is to land back where I started. I was encouraged by the fact that I'd felt a couple of surges of rising air on the way up behind the tug. As the long needle approached the top of the altimeter for the second time, I pulled the release and turned away from the suddenly dangerous cable and tow plane that I was no longer attached to. I went up and to the left, and he went down and to the right as usual. Once separated and out of immediate danger, I trimmed out for around fifty knots so that I could get properly set up for flight.Right from the first few flights, we're well drilled with pre-launch checks - ABCD, CBSIFTCBE. We go through HASELL before a non standard manoeuvre such as spin or stall practice, and WULF before turning downwind to land. Nobody has taught a formal check for post release, so I've come up with my own mnemonic; "Shovel" (SHUVLL). Speed, Height, Undercarriage, Vario, Location and Lookout. Not putting the wheel up isn't unsafe (perhaps the opposite!) but it's definitely noise and drag that we can do without.Two thousand feet QFE, just east of Boltby and in the glide now. I had around ten to fifteen minutes before I would be sat on the ground again if I couldn't both find and then exploit a source of lift. First things first, I turned south and flew along the ridge line (just for practice) to ensure I was in comfortable range of the airfield should it have been needed. It was just at the 'point' near Gormire Lake where things started to get interesting.The sensation of being in a thermal is quite unique and not one that a person who keeps their feet firmly on the ground will ever experience. To think that this weather phenomenon is going on all of the time and most people never realise it suddenly feels quite strange. It now feels odd to me that in my almost forty years of being alive, I haven't felt anything like it before. You feel it through the seat of the aircraft - as light as they are, you can well imagine that lifting glider and pilot vertically upwards requires significant energy. You hear it too, gently gliding around is a peaceful experience but when you enter a vortex, the speed at which the air is moving vertically up (or down if you're less lucky) around you causes a loud 'whooshing' sound, it's a sound I have instantly come to love hearing as it means that something exciting is about to happen.Having already looked out in preparation and found myself to be alone in the area, I rolled the glider into a steep right hand turn at 11:17am and at a GPS altitude of 2,438 ft (Sutton Bank is 920 ft ASL) according to my log file. Three minutes later I found myself at 3,556 ft and needing to level out to avoid climbing into cloud. Perhaps more through luck than judgement, I seemed to almost hit the core, as the lift was fairly constant apart from during four my eight right turns, where it indicated zero climb (but zero descent). This was the first time that I'd identified my own potential thermal, hit it and succeeded - a few weeks ago, I had enjoyed some success by following other gliders and joining their climbs but this was more like it. With a gain of around 1,000 ft this was also my best solo climb to date and so having reached cloudbase, there was little to do but enjoy (and try to prolong) my descent to Earth for a bit.After losing 700 ft exploring the area, I climbed again, adding another 300 ft or so to my total, and then again, staying at between 2,800 and 3,400 ASL until around 11:35am when I decided to stretch my legs a bit and head out into the Vale of York, almost reaching Great Thirkleby before deciding it was prudent to turn back and ensure that a safe landing in the right place was on - I knew I was downwind and so I kept a little bit of extra height as a safety margin. As it turns out, I barely descended at all heading back into wind toward the airfield and so I continued to play around in weak lift, selecting clouds, gliding out towards them (slowly, since I wasn't really sinking) and seeing what I could do once there.Two of the things you need to do for the cross country endorsement is to fly solo for a duration of one hour, and separately for two hours. I had done neither at this point, with a best of 57 minutes a few weeks ago. I decided that an hour was definitely on, actually, so was two - but I didn't want to use up the best of the day knowing that somebody else wanted to fly the aircraft, and the days are still going to get longer and better for at least a couple more months.By 12:07 and around an hour since I'd released from the tow plane, I found myself at the what the logger recorded as the flights maximum height of around 4,100 ft ASL, and I was starting to think about being courteous and returning the aircraft for the other pilot to have some fun. I considered opening the airbrakes to descend more quickly, but quickly decided that it would be much more enjoyable and worthwhile to trim the glider out for speed and check out the handling characteristics at around 70-100 knots - if I'm to aspire to cross country flying, these are the kinds of speeds in the glide that I need to become accustomed to.I kept turning to stay close enough to home, but covered a lot of distance this way. At 12:18pm and 2,000ft ASL (1,100 QFE to Sutton), I had done my hour and I was all but ready to join the circuit to land; I might need a favour from this other pilot some day and I also needed to pee quite badly by this point.I decided I would start thinking about landing checks and just had time to head out to one last cloud to see what it might offer - I had secretly hoped for, and managed to find another strong updraft and so couldn't resist. Four and a half minutes later, I was once again looking down at the world from 3,850ft ASL. I zoomed out to Gormire and back, my flight log indicating a brief moment flying at 118 kts IAS (About 135 mph) - who says gliding is a gentle sport?This time, guilt did get the better of me and I decided I wouldn't take another climb. I completed my WULF checks, joined the unfamiliar circuit for runway 06, putting into practice everything I'd learned about judging the approach by the angle to the ground. All the while, I kept close to the Whitestone cliff so as never to put my landing area beyond reach. Flying almost directly overhead, I got to enjoy the best view of the famous white horse that you could wish for, I smiled as I noted the people on the footpath below stopping and pointing upwards as I passed over them on final approach, and frowned as I noted a small group of people watching from the very part of the airfield that I had intended to land on. At least they'd had the sense to stop moving though, so I jinked to the left and gave myself a clear field and an uneventful landing.The glider came to a halt with a small application of wheelbrake, and as the right wing came to rest on the ground, I unclipped and opened the canopy. I had just completed my longest solo flight yet with one hour and twenty, having covered 68.6 nautical miles (127 km) all without leaving gliding distance of Sutton Bank!I would go on later that day to record another flight of exactly an hour so all in all, had a great days flying. I definitely returned home a better soaring pilot that I was when I arrived that morning, although there is undoubtedly still a great deal to learn and practice.