Serres expedition 2011 - day 3

Another hard day in the Alps.

Plan was for GA, 315, 768 and JH to head south to Puimoisson, then north via the ridges of the Par Cour to Mont Dauphin Saint Crepin and home - around 300k. KCZ tagged along for about 30k but wasn't able to match the performance of the hotter ships so set off on its own smaller task.

The main gaggle had a great time running the ridges and apart from one major save by Mike in 315 had a great run generally (but never think its simple in the Alps). Whilst climbs of 8kts were available the sink if you go to the wrong place can be ear poppingly painful.

A 45k final glide from Pic de Bure finished a fantastic day off. And KCZ put in a creditable 160ks.

The beers were well earned!

Serres 2011 - Day 3

The photos say it all - enjoy.


Mike passing Arambre after Geoff had climbed to the top for some exercise - we are not sure which part of his fitness regime 'ducking' comes in.

Will Ellis approaching Pic de Bure at about 6,000ft, the peak is around 8,800.

Serres expedition 2011 - day 2

Woke up to a good sky followed by the communal breakfast on the veranda of one of the chalets where it provides the opportunity to discuss the previous days flying and start considering the current days plans (always open to change after the briefing from the Serres experts at Quo Vadis).

It was decided that the day would be a bit of a "Tabbner Tour" to get familiar with the more local area before anyone starts going further afield.

This proved to be an excellent approach with a Booker gaggle of GA, JH, 768, 315 and ECZ doing around 110k initially going north past Col de Cabre before routing east to Pic du Bure

and then south abeam Gap

to Chabre (a couple carried on to Lure) before a safe return to Serres via St Genis.

Pic de Bure proved to be very busy with about 10 gliders there at one point and proved to be the high point at 10,500 feet. The day had varied conditions with good cumulus mostly, a surprise wave climb in the blue on the crossing to Pic du Bure and the best climb of the day at 8.7kts on the averager by 315 late on.

Yeeehaaaa

Serres Expedition 2011

The club expedition to Serres got off to a good (and early!) start.

The 1179 km lead and follow of 315, JH, HA, GA and 768 kept together throughout France and achieved over 90kph without incident but did generate a massive traffic jam driving down the final 60km into Serres itself.

Having held point for most of the journey, Mr Tabbner executed a daring overtaking move on the last hairpin into Serres so he could arrive first and grab the glory (he claims it was to lead us into the difficult entrance to the airfield?).
Trailers were all parked up by 21:00 local when it was time for a well earned beer.

The beer had to wait a few minutes whilst we did our first retrieve after Barry decided to check out the local plumbing by driving into a septic tank outside the chalets.

Staturday started with the 'new to Serres' pilots having check rides with local instructor Robin before everyone set off for the first days adventure into the mountains. The main party set off to the north and did a gentle 100k O/R to Col de Rousesset to the west of the Vercors range in the Alps. All went well apart from a very short period when a nameless plumber became uncertain of his position - however the rest of the team were able to to put him straight.

All in all a great start to the expedition.

ps - Jane the foods good as well

First week of June

The weather continues to provide plenty of soaring so far this month, if a little challenging in the increasing winds as the week went on - but practice and being current makes it easier.

Cross country flights were made on most days of the week with Dave C taking the Duo Discus on trips on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and others doing various tasks alongside. Check the Club Ladder to see just what was done.

The new range of courses are proving a success with a notable achievement by Stuart Whitehouse who initially started on a Basic Course and with a couple of top-ups went solo during the week. Congratulations to him.

On the cadet front, Guy Trees gained his first Bronze leg, Will Hilton has started his BI training and 4 new cadets started with the club on Saturday with Richard Crockett giving them an opening induction and showing them the ropes out on the field - a warm welcome to Ben, Sam, Peter and Daniel.

Sunday wasn't the brightest of days but fly pasts of the Royal Navy Historic Flight of a Jet Provost and Sea Fury livened thing up.

Bottesford revisited and the perils of littering

Bottesford




The perils of a discarded tissue!

One of the models showed the possibility of a good flight so despite the gathering rain clouds I set off for BOT and CBN. Unfortunately after a bit of a shower I had to "relight" and have another go. Having restarted the day just got better and better. Unfortunately I discarded a tissue half way up the first leg and it stuck to the TE tube rendering it useless. It did make locating the good cores a bit difficult.

A nice XC day

Shack Roberts and A9 over Milton Keynes

The forecast was not that great, but fortunately conditions were significantly better than forecast. Several pilots set off on Newbury/Peterborough 310kms and enjoyed some good 4-5kt climbs to 4500' amsl. The 20kt wind made coming home a bit slower, but the good streets helped compensate. John Herman visited a field near Grafham Water and by all accounts needs to tell the tale of the aerotow retrieve!

Booker wave

The brisk northwesterly produced some tantalising wave clouds this morning, before the front arrived and we retired from the rain. If we get anything like this on our expedition to Aboyne in October we will be well pleased. As it was, we had a couple of hours of strong thermals - and equally strong sink. T6 went off to explore the ridge and had a bit of fun before the rain.

Booker Rules 2011 Competition - Concludes

The Booker Rules 2011 competition has successfully concluded having met its objectives of rewarding speed and distance flown as well as allowing a wider range of pilot experience and glider performance to complete. 5 competition days were achieved under Contest Director Jim White's excellent efforts. Jim did the initial ground work to define the rules and build a scoring system as well as setting challenging and varied tasks for the conditions (as well as competing himself). There were finishers on all but one day when everyone landed out.

Contest Director Jim White checking the weather

Jim was ably assisted by Met man Nils Wedi who gave daily masterclasses on the weather, forecast conditions and likely daily situation. He also gave a more simple "good/bad/maybe" of the conditions - what is uncanny though is how accurate his forecasts proved to be.

Nils daily weather briefing

The last day of the competition had everyone land out (either genuinely, photo land out or engine start land out) and whilst it was possible to work out the final results, the prize giving had every possibility of being a Marie Celeste affair.

The potential Marie Celeste prize giving

Fortunately thanks to turbos, aerotow or road retrieves enough competitors were around to enjoy the delights of Marnie's barbecue and for prize giving to occur.

First place went to Denis Campbell (again - he does seem to be making it 'his' competition!), second place to Alan Johnston and 3rd to Jim Pengelly. Congratulations to them and all the other competitors.

There had been a daily prize for the best team pair of pilots and it was unanimously agreed that the best "team prize" for the week should go to Shelagh and Hilary who had undoubtedly assisted all the pilots as some point in the week.

Follow the link to the Competition Blog on the panel alongside for details of the tasks, results and which also has links to a number of fabulous photos from various days of the competition.

A great week flying all in all - watch out for the Booker Rules Competition 2012.

Spanish Plume - Booker Rules Competition 2011

The Booker Rules Competition 2011 has been underway this week and has resulted in 4 contest days so far for the 20 competitors. The weather has been challenging with strong winds and blue skies but this hasn't dampened down the enthusiasm of those taking part.

The days have been 'bracketed' with Marni's excellent barbecue breakfasts in the morning and burger and beers in the evening - several pilots have been seen weighing themselves to check out maximum cockpit loads just in case.

Competition Director Jim White has set interesting and varied tasks and as things stand Denis is in the lead with his starship 370 and the rest of the field hoping the "Spanish Plume" won't wash out the rest of the weekend and their chances of gaining first place overall.

Marnie has posted a load of excellent photos from the week on Flicker (check out the link in the Competition Blog site).

Booker Gliding Club also gets a mention in Pilot Magazine after one of their reporters came down to fly with Graham Saw and find out why glider pilots make such good pilots.

Competition Director with his wind resistant hat

All action at the launch point

Gridded up waiting for the 'off'