Imagine A memorable cross country flight over rural England by Phil Hawkins.

Scottish Wave 21,000 feet in a wardrobe by Dave Weekes

Wave at Weston 8,000 feet over Oxfordshire by Phil Hawkins.

21 000 FEET IN A WARDROBE !

"It might be worth rigging early" Rick commented after we watched the Tuesday night weather forecast at the Loch Kinord bar. Was this over-optimism after three days of poor weather? Anyway we missed the hotel's massive Scottish breakfast and were rigging in the half light soon after 7am. Following a wet night it was a lovely morning with a moderate west/southwesterly wind and very little cloud. No wave markers at all. Rick launched first at 8.25 and the Skylark was third in the queue, with the barograph carefully sealed and ticking, oxygen checked, me with furry boots on, ready to plummet from the top of the aerotow yet again.

"It's rough on tow between 1 500 and 2 000 feet", Rick radioed. He wasn't kidding, a tumble drier was operating between the airfield and the lakes - woops, they're lochs, not lakes - but the tow smoothed out at about 2 300 feet and the vario went off the clock. I'd been caught (twice) earlier in the week by coming off tow too early, so this time I waited until 2 700 before pulling the bung.

Even without the tug we were still going up at 5 - 6 knots and at 3 400' I finally remembered to pull full brake and circle to mark a low point on the barograph trace. However I didn't remember to check the altimeter to see whether I lost any height in the process and the result was only a tiny nick on the trace. Be warned! That kind of thing can be costly on marginal climbs.

Rick and the other aircraft were well above, flying a North - South beat. Follow them, I thought, and as a cunning plan it worked pretty well for a while, but by 7 500' the lift had slowed to 2 - 3 knots and I lost them. However, this was fun. Would I break my previous best height in the Skylark of 11 500 feet? The answer seemed to be no, as I dropped into sink at about 10 500.

A change in the cunning plan was obviously required, and quickly, so I pushed west into what I hoped would be more lift up the Dee valley. That improved things and we crept up to 11 500 feet before I lost it again and dropped about 800 feet. They're strange things, oxygen masks, whenever I put one near my face, it seems to suck the whole glider towards the ground. Someone should do a PhD on the phenomenon of "heavy oxygen".

No gliders could be seen above, but those below seemed to be more to the north. Taking the hint, I shifted a mile or so towards Morven, the local mountain, now looking a lot smaller. That got us out of the sink - maybe it was switching off the oxygen that did it and we climbed in 2 - 3 knots past 12 grand. Not even the effect of going back onto oxygen could overcome that lift. An RAF Hercules crossed at the same level and about half a mile ahead. Had they seen me? - probably not. Would they have believed it if they had? "Wooden UFO in Air France colours spotted over Scotland".

14 000 feet - definitely a new personal high. The best results seemed to be obtained by flying directly into the wind, which at the higher levels was about SW. Best climb airspeed had dropped to 35 knots, groundspeed on the GPS was 12 knots. After a while the lift seemed to be slowing so I turned & went downwind on the assumption that I'd moved out of the front of the wave, remembering this time to put a GPS mark on the point where the lift improved. However I must have gone too far downwind, out of the rising wave and into the sink because a couple of hundred feet vanished fast off the altimeter before I could turn and get back to the self-raising stuff.

Using the GPS "mark" facility and ground references helped keep us in the lift and we climbed steadily at 2 - 3 knots. 15 000, 16 000 came and went, with me watching the altimeter with fascinated disbelief. Then it was time to do something about the oxygen. The 2 litres/minute setting on Haste's 230 litre bottle hadn't been working too well and it had been on 4 litres/min for 50 minutes, with me keeping a paranoid eye on the inflation of the accumulator bag and checking that the fingernails were keeping pink. I had just been able to see the contents gauge down by my left hip when I'd installed the bottle but not with the extra clothes I was now wearing. Anyhow, I had RD's portable set on the other side of the cockpit, (with its gauge equally hard to see) and figured it was time to swap sets as we passed 17 000'. Paranoia also extended to occasional checks on airbrake free movement. Arrgh! My vision has gone blurred. Oxygen deficiency? No, just the sunglasses misting up. Take them off.

At 18 000 the lift slowed to 1 - 2 knots but still steady. To the east the sun was reflecting brightly off the North Sea, which had got a lot bigger. The only clouds at that level were to the west - over Feshie? The whole of the Moray Firth and the NE Scottish coast was visible. Loch Muick, Balmoral and the Dee valley all the way to Aberdeen were clear. What a view! The Skylark was climbing in wave - I was soaring on pure euphoria. And diamond height was beginning to look possible.

Uncertainty struck again and I made a quick call "Rick, what is diamond height?" Someone answered "16 500 feet gain". It's close! 20 000 feet should be just in, but at 19 500 we didn't seem to be climbing at all despite the vario still showing ½ - 1 knot. This went on for several minutes and then miraculously the needle unstuck and swung to 20 000.

20 000 feet! I couldn't believe it. The toes were a bit chilly but I'd made sure that I'd started off with dry boots. The sun was still shining, the rest of me was warm and I was using the gloves and woolly hat solely to scrub ice off the inside of the canopy. There wasn't another glider in sight and the feeling of detachment from the earth and reality was intense. The Cairngorms looked very flat, and the North Sea even larger. The quiet roar of the air coming through the ventilator and the view of the ground was about the same as a 747 in the cruise but the cabin service was rotten and I was sure that the barograph wasn't ticking. Had I really wound it up and switched it on? Self confidence goes out of the window at times like that.

Then 20 000 vanished again as I hit sink. Was it downhill from now on? That'll teach you to count chickens. Would 20 grand be enough? Maybe not. A quick turn got us out of the sink and on the run downwind we hit + 3 knots. It was still there on the upwind leg and there we were, 21 200 feet! More might have been possible but I'd been on RD's oxygen for 30 minutes and it was time to get back down to 10 000 with a reasonable safety margin.

I was ecstatic and the need to tell someone was overwhelming. "Aboyne base, Bravo November Kilo 21 000 feet, descending". There was a brief chorus "Well done Dave" - either from Rick or the Feshie mob. "What's Bravo November Kilo?" "It's a wooden ship" a slightly morose voice said. I took a couple of photos through the icy canopy. I would have loved a picture of that unbelievable altimeter reading, with the third hand pointing at 2 but couldn't get the camera unscrewed from the mount.

We spiralled down on half brake. Gel coat cracking is not too much of a worry in gliders built of natural carbon-based fibre. Passing in front of the Morven lenticular at 6 000 feet, even full brake and 65 knots couldn't stop a brief climb and the descent took nearly 40 minutes. The fun stopped as we entered the circuit which was very rough and for a while on finals it was debatable whether I was going to hit the narrow tarmac strip or the grass alongside it. The grass is now far more glider-friendly than it was but eventually plenty of height, speed and the Skylark's wonderful airbrakes got me safely onto the tarmac.And when we stopped, I could hear the barograph ticking. Yes! What a lovely sound and there was a trace too, going impressively far up the drum.

Someone in a Phoebus (CJJ) did 23 500', so it was a great day for old gliders. Rick did 23 000 having lost about 7 grand in an adventurous foray to another wave bar. One of the locals did over 500 k but then he had an engine in the back. Right BNK, a 500 k now please! Any volunteers for a really long downwind retrieve? Don't kid yourself Dave, you're still a lousy pilot, you couldn't do 500 k in a Cessna.

One of the older Booker gentlemen remarked "It's lovely to see all those expensive plastic ships outclimbed by a wardrobe". One of the other Booker pilots, who failed to get above 12 grand in his ASW 24 seemed to disagree but I thought it was lovely too.

Dave Weekes

Aboyne, Wednesday, October 4th 2000