The winter is great for learning to glide — lots of short flights to practice launches and landings — but, if we’re honest, it’s no good for long soaring flights.
For many of us, the fun of gliding is capturing lift from thermals to try to stay aloft as long as possible.
So, when the thermals are weak and pathetic and Octoberish, that should only make the challenge better right?
Well, yesterday I was flying one of our club high performance gliders – Discus DM – and here’s where I flew.
You might notice one solitary corkscrew pattern there. This was the one half-way coherent thermal I found!
Looking at my height trace, you can see that it was unfortunately on the first of my three flights. I just about managed to stay aloft and even climb a little.
But the wind was strong, so I jumped off the thermal as I started to get downwind of the airfield.
Overall, then, three short flights, and about 100′ height gain. Not a long soaring cruising day. But was it fun? Yes! So long as there’s some kind of movement in the atmosphere it’s fun to try to make the best of it.
I failed to take any photos on the day, so here’s a photo of the glider I was flying during sunnier times.
