Anyone Want to Fly a Target?

On Friday evening after I had checked the Suffolk Club's forum, it looked like winching for the day wasn't going to happen with only two members signed up [myself being one of them]. I posted one final comment about it probably not happening and that was enough to spur enough people to come out of the wood work.

I arrived at Mendlesham shortly after 10am. John was already there and looked a little stressed; something to do with the padlock! Between the two of us we wheeled out the winches and started readying the field. Next to arrive was Richard and Keith, the required winch operators for the day. Richard was without glider, so very honourably took up position on the clubs oldest winch, the Princess! That meant John, Keith and myself, would be winch fodder for the day.

By the time of my first winch, the wind was quite cross [45-70 degrees] and a little gusty. I was the second person to be towed on the Princess [John's early tow was a little too light]. After the “All-out” was given, I was hauled forward. Richard, on the winch, had now increased the tension from the previous tow. It was a little too much for me and my glider began to dance all over the sky. I wasn't enjoying it and when it came to the first release, I mistakenly attempted my first release before the tension had fully dropped off. This resulted in a weak link break followed by a slightly less than perfect landing on the runway. After a hot sweaty walk with the glider, I was back at launch.

For launch 2, the Princess winch was replaced with the Koch winch and resulted in my second launch being a much less stressful experience. The wind was very cross, almost due south so limited my final release height. Richard later advised me on letting the glider drift down wind but keeping it pointed towards the winch to get a better tow.

Although the sky looked interesting, connecting with any reasonable lift eluded most of us. It wasn't until I lent Richard my Target before someone finally connected with lift. Richard was able to stay aloft for over 15 minutes and achieved an altitude of 1,100 feet [as recorded on my vario - shame I couldn't take credit for it]. I think that was a personal best for my Target! I told myself that Richard being 20kg lighter gave him that advantage!

My remaining launches were all very similar, however, as the wind started to blow more from the west e.g. down the runway, better height gains on tow were achieved. I ended the day with my worst landing to date [I blame the wind suddenly switching to the south]. My 'belly flop' was also caught on video so after that I decided that that was enough for today and started to pack up. I'd had 7 tows and was now tired [something to do with all that sun! I assisted with a few more launches and after that the group consensus was that's it for the day! By 17:30 we had all packed everything into the hanger and set off to our respective abodes [for me, just over a 2 hour drive away!].