Saturday
Back | HomeAnybody who flew today probably found it quite tricky. The clues were the clouds not streeting (but actually lining up across wind), and on satellite the socking great wave trains coming out of the west! Any thermals were likely quite squished by descending limbs, and any rising limbs probably weren’t very strong after coming all the way down from Wales at quite a short wavelength.
The wave in Wales was forecast by RASP, though it didn’t show it propagating downwind and suggested that streeting was more likely. All good experience—-I’ll know for next time 
. The main clue was probably the particularly strong subsidence->warming->stability above the inversion, combined with the wave-friendly wind profile—-steadily increasing to 90 knots at 35,000 ft. If I was on my home PC I’d post a screenshot of today’s Nottingham sounding—-you can see it for yourself using the link on the left for a day or so; you may need to select “1100 28Jun08” from the buttons at the bottom.
So, tomorrow (Sunday): doesn’t look great. Various amounts of mid-level cloud around in the morning which should clear to a couple of bands of showers, one more in the southeast and another over the Midlands into Wales. Cumulus bases, where you can find them, will be in the 3,000s. Wind will be 10 knots at surface and 20-25 at height from WSW.
Monday is beginning to look rather blue, but with a fair depth of convection—-5,000 ft or so.
Ladder thoughts
Had a mail in response to my plea yesterday. The gist of it (and I hope I’m not over-simplifying) is that “The Ladder scores flights and is therefore a competition”, and that people design their flights to maximise points on it.
I have no doubt that a few people do treat the ladder has a national, season-long comp, but the vast majority don’t. If they did people wouldn’t load short or slow flights. It’s those flights though which are useful to me and the other forecasters, and probably just quite interesting for folks to read about. Don’t forget that the CAA are known to check the ladder too to assess where and how often gliders are flying—-use it or lose it, and we’re talking about airspace here.
You can look up whoever has got the most points in whatever category on the ladder but personally I’ve never done it (not even sure how ). I just don’t see it has a competition—-it’s a national record of glider flight, an invaluable resource, and one that needs your support.
200klm Out and return to Thrapston from Dereham
Usual problem getting across the Wisbech wave gap
Upwood was very good 4knots to 5000 then Thrapston started to fill in.
Climbed to about 5000 turned for home an just about a straight glide back…..1:60+ in a VentusB hardly turning..NICE!
Silly,,,, all day to get there and a few minutes to get home. Most of the day we had 17knot 260 but for about an hour it jumped to 22. Most odd almost as if the PDA failed.
I agree with your comments re:ladder.I’m fine with people that want to treat it as a comp - those that WANT to win it,and plan and judge their flights by the number of ladder points it bags them,will always win anyway.
I like the ladder,and because of it’s rise in popularity over the last couple of years,for me it has become an almanac of the UK gliding scene - a snapshot of peoples highs and lows(no pun intended),on any given day.I enjoy reading as much about a titanic struggle to do 50km in 3 hours in a Ka8 as about a fantastic 750km flight.I don’t think the ladder would have the appeal that it does if it were just a list of fast 500’s done by the same names all the time.
I posted a flight recently where things went a bit wrong and I landed after about 35km.I certainly didn’t do it for the points,but so that people would have a look at my comments and have a laugh at my expense and realise that they’re not the only ones that things go wrong for - in fact,the more flights that have an interesting tale and a landout in there the better! Oh,and don’t forget to include a bit of weather feedback for Glidemet.
(1) 166k o&r LAS-SHA-LAS on Saturday, run out to SHA was good but then it turned to worms, fairly close to a land out East of Compton Abbas, thermals all broken up and bitty making it difficult to get a positive climb. Talking to others at Lasham at end of day revealed that several others had experienced difficulties in that area, so your end of day comments on the wave effect would explain the cause of our problems. There were several land outs.
(2) Re the National ladder.It is difficult getting some people to enter flights. Recently I have been P2 on a couple of flights that would have been amongst the leading ones for the day but just could not persuade the (well known) P1 to make an entry.
I had a fairly heated debate with another well known gliding personality last Friday, he does not enter his flights because he does not want them scored. He wants to fly where and when he wants without worrying about any sort of competitive element.
I enter my own, often puny, flights because I believe that the more flights entered the better case we can put to the ‘authorities’ for our continuing use of the U/K airspace.
(3) Please keep up the good work with Glide Met, it is much appreciated.
Cheers.
Mick.
I agree with Mick Wells - I was another one who got low just east of Compton Abbas. Having recovered slowly to 3500 feet QNH I perservered with going to Sherborne, but had to use my engine shortly after rounding the corner. Travelling back to Lasham was easy enough, even under widespread spreadout between Salisbury and Chilbolton.
I wonder if John Bridge would be interested in a “no score” option for the ladder? I feel an email coming on…
Colin—sorry about the delay in your comment appearing. My over-zealous spamfilter trapped it.
On Saturday i was flying from Parham and the task was an out and return to Lasham. I got to Lasham really fast but there were i think two gliders local soaring (just) and i struggled for about 30mins trying to find anything decent, heading back south towards the coast it suddenly perked up. No idea why the conditions deteriorated, no sign of wave?! the clouds were there, just no high pitched beeping on the vario…
Forecast spot on today along the south, saved me a £25 a/t.
Saturday and Sunday at D&SGC (North Hill) were very similar. WE started off with fairly lumpy stratus at around 1500’, which gradually broke and turned into fairly distinct wave bars perpendicular to the wind. This gradually broke up as more blue appeared, and at around 1400 on Sat and 1500 on Sun, the thermals started popping properly and people started flying tasks (ICL weekend). However, the wave was obviously influencing things, cloudbase reached a max at 3000’ and thinning clouds on Saturday and sligh overdevelopment on Sunday meant it was scrubbed (at least for us novices) both days. 15-20 kts W kept us amused on the ridge.
I suggested a ‘no score’ option for the ladder some time ago, but people weren’t very interested and John didn’t seem to understand it.
I’ve always used it just to store a log of my flights, you can just ignore the scores if you want.
Several of the postees above did flights,as did the ICL comp that I was flying in,that would make interesting reading with a few comments attached,but didn’t bother to post.It’s as if the Pundits don’t want to put any ‘short’ or uncompleted flights on the ladder lest it should bring shame and a lowering of their status in the gliding world.As I said above,the short,difficult or uncompleted as well as the long,fast flights make just as interesting reading.I never thought about a 0 points ladder - what a good idea!
I try to get everyone at LGC to post their traces… It’s getting better but we’ve still got a long way to go.
I agree that the slow/short/uncompleted tasks are often very interesting; a large undeclared flight won’t score incredibly but again, may make fascinating viewing. Another benefit of the Ladder is having a backup store of those valuable .igc files in case they go astray.
I’m not sure why some people are reluctant to post “low-scoring” flights - only the best six are actually counted for the Ladder. It’s great to be able to see what others thought of the day, even if it was crap. More importantly, having a public record of use of airspace is vital when it comes to arguing with NATS/the CAA, especially any wave flights or (legal!) controlled airspace crossings.
I certainly don’t have any problem in understanding the zero-points suggestion - sorry if I gave that impression; I was just questioning why displaying the score was such a big deal.
However, if it will persuade the more reluctant XC pilots to post their flights, then it will be done (though the fix will have to take its place in the queue).
As the Ladder steward for LGC I have noticed an increase in the number of flights submitted over the last couple of years since the National Ladder has been pilot entry, however I know that on many occasions prior to pilot entry of flights may be only 25% of the XC flights from Dunstable on a given day were entered on the ladder. The situation has improved somewhat since pilot submission of flights has been allowed but there are still a large number of flights that are never entered.
I also agree that by entering as many flights as possible it is a useful record of airspace used by glider pilots in our continuing battles with NATS/CAA. May be this is more important these days than the points score. I also know that at the end of the year John Bridge has often contacted me requesting ‘traces’ for pilots at the top of the ladders because there has often not been evidence of all the flights so how seriously are some of the pilots in the top 10 or 20 taking the ladder as a competition ?
Currently we have more than the 30 pilots who have entered the ladder at LGC this year and realistically most of us know we are never going to get near Ed Downhams score but this does not really matter - it is more useful/interesting to see what people have achieved from Dunstable on any particular day.
The daily scores/distances/task areas are also interesting viewing as it gives some feedback on what conditions were like compared to what the forecasts were for any particular day whether or not you have been able to fly yourself or not.