Alan goes to Marham

Whilst at the club on Friday evening (the 13th July) with a group for Trial Lessons Brian P told me of the “orders from above” (ROMO), that I should attempt my 50km or 5 hours, or both, the following day. So there was now a second incentive as well as my own to have a go.

Saturday morning looked grey initially, with a forecast for cloudbase to lift, cu and thermals to develop from midday onwards, with a good afternoon to follow. The upper wind looked set to help me with a “downwind dash” to Marham, or possibly East Winch to avoid giving the retrieve crew access problems, and the plans were set. Brian P telephoned Marham (Fenland GC) to let them know of my potential arrival later in the day.

Preparations all complete, others were saying that thermals were now strong, I was ready to give it a try. First launch – straight into ‘dunk-dunk-dunk’ from the vario, nothing else found so back on the ground. Nothing new for me there! Second launch found me in similar sink to start with, but just as I was about to turn downwind the ‘dunks’ turned to gentle ‘beeps’, which grew as I turned. This time the ‘beeps’ kept going as I climbed in 1 –3 metres/sec up to 3600ft, just under cloudbase.

As the tailwind was quite strong (20 kts or so), cloud development was well under way and I was already part of the way to my first checkpoint south of March, I decided to head off downwind, rather than follow the advice of more experienced pilots of ‘not going on the first thermal’. The Cirrus certainly has long legs when flying downwind, for the checkpoint soon arrived to my left after losing only 500ft. I wanted to stay above 3000ft for as much of the flight as possible so another thermal gave me a few extra hundreds of feet. It wasn’t very strong so I diverted slightly to the right to try to find a better one – not the best move of the fight because it took me over damp fenland ground by the Ouse and Bedford Drains – no significant lift found here!

Marham’s black tarmac runway was now clearly in sight as I continued on, still looking for the thermal to top me up again. Down to just over 2000ft now south of Downham Market, and a weak one gave me another 300ft to play with. Getting a bit frustrated now with my failed guesses of which clouds looked likely to have good lift, so as I could see that I was within range of Marham I left my last thermal at 2400ft and headed for Marham’s circuit. Fenland GC gliders were about, and after a couple of more turns upwind of their airfield I finally landed at 13:55hrs (going beyond their upwind boundary to be sure of the 50km distance) alongside their Acrow, 52 minutes after launching.

The Retrieve? Ah, now there’s another tale! My crew, Andy G and Brian P, must have been worried for me out there on my first trip away from home, as on leaving the club site to fetch me they had a thought that they ought to bring a long white box for the Cirrus with them, and had to go back to collect it! After the usual formalities at RAF Marham Gatehouse aided by our colleagues at Fenland GC, we got the trailer onto the field, de-rigged and loaded up. Brian and Andy had a chin-wag with some of the Fenland folks, we all had a welcome cup of tea, thanks to the ladies of Fenland, and were ready to set off when Marham ATC called a halt to proceedings, advising us to wait for 3 Tornados to take off. Usually the RAF don’t fly at weekends, but these 3 were off somewhere to do a Flying Display. Finally, at about 5:30 we were on our way home.

If you ever go to RAF Marham by vehicle and visit Fenland GC make sure that on departing and leaving the grassed area you stop and physically check all tyres for stones, otherwise a man in a blue suit will stop you and make sure that you have! This is to ensure that the Tornados don’t have FOD blown up off the runway by the aircraft in front, with subsequent very expensive damage to their engines.

My thanks and appreciation for my trip go to Chris H and Richard H for their help and encouragement before I left, to Dave for unravelling the mysteries of GPS and Logger setup and for printing out the end result, Fenland GC for their hospitality, but mostly to Andy and Brian for the retrieve back home.

Some lessons learned / ‘do-differentlies’ for next time I venture away from base – yes I have a few:

Avoid planning evening commitments on the same day, as forecasting a return-home time can be wildly out! I did get to the evening event (a local open-air jazz concert) in time, just!
Make a healthy allowance for drift, apply it to headings and fly it! The upper wind although forecast to be on-track, was a few degrees off, and it blew me further off than I had expected .
Practise changing radio channels in the air. Why are the channel buttons - especially the KHz selectors - so small, needing an extended fingernail to find and operate them?
Button-hole the pundits in the club to learn more about cloud-reading and selecting, as the first thermal I climbed in was the only really strong one I found, although I am sure more were about.

Overall it was a great experience, if not a particularly well-flown flight, and I enjoyed it. Hopefully the start of more cross-countries, once the 5 hours is out of the way.