"Peter Seddon" wrote in message
...

"Robert Ehrlich" wrote in message
...
Peter Seddon wrote:
...
... gliding is VERY frustrating, we all dont have thermals at
our beck and call.
...

Very subjective. Two very pouplar sports in the USA, basket ball
and base ball seem to me much more frustrating than gliding, I can't
imagine how one can succeed in putting this big ball in this basket
or hitting this small one with this strange tool, nor what
satisfaction or enjoyment comes from that. On the other hand one
of my best satisfaction of this last summer came from a week day,
when I was at 25 km from the field together with another glider
which landed out a short time after, while I had a low save and another
one and another one, each time in very weak lift and vanishing after a
short time but each time allowing a little progress toward the home
field,
until at 16 km I fell in a boomer and had the height for final
glide. I think a base ball or basket ball player can't understand
what satisfaction or enjoyment comes from that. This is why our
sport is declining.

You've totally missed the point, in the UK this year the weather has been
so
bad for flying that it's not only general flying that has been hit, the
two
seater comp at the Wolds Gliding club was almost a wash out. My caravan
had
a lake outside for almost every day and out of eight days we only flew for
three. When I look at my log book for the past four years the number of
flights have decereased each year and I have my own aircraft. Our club is
restricted to flying at weekends only and you can't fly with a 1000ft
ceiling of total cloud cover. Where I live I havn't seen snow for a great
number of years so naturally it drops as rain. Out of the 52 flying
weekends
last year, 4 were lost to holidays 6 were lost to familly committments and
about 30 were lost to bad weather. That 's the reason gliding is declining
for new members, people loose interest through lack of flying weather. The
UK has had three wery wet summers and mild wet winters, days like last
Sunday when I had 3hrs 3 mins to 12000ft are very few and far between.

Peter.



OK, I sympathize. Weather in dear old England is dreadful. I think Al
McDonald has been saying that for years. It's been a pretty wet year here
in Colorado, USA too.

OTOH, this Tuesday I towed from a snow covered runway into wave. At 18,000
feet, I had my finger on the mike button to call Denver Center for clearance
into the wave window. Before I transmitted the call, I checked the OAT. It
was -22F - pretty much the limit for gellcoat.

The wings were condensing frost right out of the supersaturated, supercooled
air. The canopy was 50% frosted over. (Yes, there really is such a thing
as clear air icing.) I asked the student to check spoilers and it took three
huge efforts to get them unlocked from the ice. I thought about landing a
spoilerless G103 on a snow covered runway with water hazards and decided
this wasn't the day so I didn't make the radio call. We didn't get rid of
the ice until below 9,000.

Ah well, the sun is shining and tomorrow should be warmer yet.

Bill Daniels