Sailplane & Gliding 1966 - Lakes Gliding Club

Now, map - railways out of the
town. Bran.ch left for Basingstoke.
musm't get too near cloud. Basingstoke
here we come. They said I'd enjoy it.
They were right again. What wouldn't
I give for a cigarette. Have to wait till
I land. You know, there is just a chance
that I might get there after all. What
a marvellous feeling - Booker a million
miles away, and wildest Hampshire
down below, or is it Berkshire? Not going
down to find out.
Concentrate. Hope it is the right railway.
190°, about right. What the hell,
Basingstoke must be down tbere somewhere.
Barograph! I never switched it
on! Listen, slow down, get a bit of hush.
Tick, tick, tick. If I didn't, somebody
else did. Hallo, more lift, and it's a
good one. You'd have to be flying a
brick outhouse to Come down today.
There is an airfield - Odiham. Where
it should be on the left and Basingstoke!
Good Lord, I'm nearly there, and
enough height and am I going to look
an idiot when I don't find Lasham? It's
big enough. It must be in that fug down
there somewhere. A glider! Now he
must be from Lasham. Skylark 2. Local
soaring? I can always follow him and
nobody will know. There it is - oh ye
of little faith and look a t the height!
5,000 and a bit, so here we come, and
watch me make a classic stinker out of
the landing - and where? That's the
towcar line and there are the tugs and
wherever I go it will be wrong anyway,
so why hang about? Nobody else landing.
Brakes out, 4,000, 3,000, 2,000.
Remember it's 150 ft. higher here. Over
the Comet, 850 and turn left and left
again - speed up. Too late to change
your mind now - brakes and don't
grou,ndloop it, not here, not now. Nice
and straight and stop.
This is almost the best cigarette of
my life, and here comes somebody and
how can I wipe that silly grin off my
face?
"Good afternoon -
from Booker."
no, not far, only
A FRONT TO REMEMBER
By KEITH NURCOMBE
OU might think that we at Husbands
Y Bosworth, almost in the heart of
England, would not be terribly concerned
with sea-breeze fronts except at
the end of a downwind dash to the
coast. However, some of the local pundits
have been insisting that they do
penetrate as far as our site from the
north-east, and pilots at nearby Rearsby
(a bit nearer the Wash) claim to have
seen the occasional S.B.F. in the late
evening after a good light-westerly soaring
day. On Easter Sunday (10th April)
rather exceptional conditions occurred
when a cold front was reinforced by sea
breeze and gave me a flight to remember
for a long time, while a number of
short out-and-retum tasks were foiled by
the almost incredible conditions.
The day started with low stratus and
poor visibility, and it took cODsidera.ble
optimism to plan cross-countries, although
the morning forecast told of a
weak cold front clearing rapidly from
372
the south by mid-morning. Late arrivals
.from the Stratford region confirmed that
a large area of blue, with good Cu pop·
ping already, was moving rapidly northwards,
and so flight preparations
changed into top gear. The Oly trailer
had been totally destroyed in the previous
wee}{.-end's gales, and so 09.30 hrs.
saw a band of eager workers busily
modifying an ex-syndicate trailer. Since
they appeared to have everything under
control (and I was getting in the way), I
moved off and tried drawing lines on
my map and attending to the sundry
details that one remembers at the last
minute.
By 10.00 hrs. the clearance had arrived,
and by 12.00 hrs. cloudbase was
up to 3,200 feet a.s.!. with tops at 7-8,000
feet. By 13.00 hrs. streets were forming,
and since reports of strong lift were
coming in, an immediate launch in the
Club Oly 2 was thought prudent to enable
an attempt on five-houTS as well.