Boot Camp Day One

This weekend was Boot Camp weekend, the Suffolk Coastal Floaters training weekend, the aim of which is to train new winch operators and club coaches, the life-blood of the club! All they needed is some winch fodder, aka; pilots to be winched, so that was my role for the weekend sorted!

I arrived at Mendlesham airfield a little later than planned - the crash on the M25 being the cause, but arrived just in time to see everyone headed off to Metfield in Norfolk, the club's alternative but rarely used winch site. I had previously programmed all the site locations into my TomTom, so assumed if I blindly followed this, it would get me there. Wrong, my POI was in the correct place, albeit off a road, but TomTom just didn't quite know how to get to it. Note to brain, revise Metfield POI to be where the road access to the airfield is!

After much debate about weather and wind direction, the winch was set-up and the lines pulled out. The wind was pretty blustery and at one point, one glider was launched without pilot. Fortunately, it was grabbed and returned to safety before damaged was inflicted!

As the morning progressed my turn to winch came around. The club held two competitions over the weekend, spot landing (the pilot who could do 'controlled' landing nearest the designated spot), and duration (the pilot that could stay up the longest). I didn't really fancy my chances but I'd try my best! The spot was positioned several yards behind the launch area, an area I guessed would be subject to some rotor due to the large mound of soil upwind from it.

Tow 1

It was soon time for my first tow. The wind gusted, so timing the correct launch was pretty important. The tow up was bumpy but within my comfort zone. However, when I approached landing, I did get bumped around a little, so pulled extra speed to increase my margin for error. I concluded the bumps were due to rotor from the before mentioned mound of earth.

Tow 2

Launch number two was almost a replay of launch 1 however, I landed closer to the spot - a grand total of 7 paces. This put me in the lead for most of the day!

After two more successful launches the gusty conditions worsened, so the decision was made to cease winching until it had calmed down a little. Whilst we waited for conditions to improve I began to devise a way of attaching my little video camera to my helmet. This was achieved using generous lengths of insulation tape! Shortly later the conditions calmed and winching recommenced.

Tows 3-5

My remaining tows were all pretty similar, some slightly prolonged when I turned in some rising bits of air, but nothing significant. The spot had been relocated upwind of the earth mound after a not so pretty landing by one pilot, ending his flying for the rest of the day. Needless to say, I wasn't able to improve upon my earlier spot landing and I was eventually reduced to second place when Keith landed 2 paces from it! Nice!

The day concluded with a visit to the Duke pub in Metfield for a drink and bite to eat before we eventually returned to Mendlesham to set-up camp.