A wave flight on June 20. By: Mike Rubin Posted: October 8 2003
Note that wave like this is not so common in the flat south of England- in ten years this is my only proper experience of wave.
I had a most extraordinary flight on June 20 in the Surrey & Hants DG-300. I declared LAS-HEReford-LAS (305km) but I found the thermals to be broken and distorted. I launched 20-25 minutes before midday. I tiptoed my way to Newbury - never getting above 3000-3500ft above Lasham (or 3600-4300ft asl) in 1-2kts average (maybe the odd stronger bit).
Then I discovered why the thermals were weird. Just a few miles west/south-west of Newbury at about 4300ft asl I headed out into a blue hole and found 4kts up in very smooth air. I circled in it with another glider, and we steadily rose above cloudbase. I realised I was in wave! I then switched to wave style soaring (not round in circles any more but back and forth across the wind) and kept on going at 3-4kts up to FL65 where I had to break off because of airspace. I headed upwind on track and found another wave bar at Hungerford, and then another at Membury.
From FL65 near Membury I could see a long way up track, and the cumulus didn't look any better than I had seen from below, so I abandoned the 300 and decided to head back to Hungerford, where the airspace limit is higher, and explore the wave.
I found it again just south of Hungerford, and slowly but surely scraped to 7400ft (8000ft asl) before I lost the wave. Then overhead Rivar Hill I climbed back up to about 7200ft (7800ft asl). (I've never seen Rivar Hill look so small!) Then I glided home to Lasham, bending south towards Andover to avoid airspace, and got back with 3500ft (above Lasham) to spare. The last weak wave lift I saw (but flew straight past) was at about 5500ft asl just north of Popham. Then it was back to bumpy air as I dropped back through the inversion.
This is the first time I have ever experienced proper wave (hence the “novelty value” of my descriptions), and I believe it is highly unusual for it to be this strong this far south - peaking at about 3-4kts, dropping to 0.5-1kts above 7000ft. I heard reports on the radio of people in wave at Worcester - directly between me and North Wales, so I guess that is the source. It was completely “blue” wave with no lenticulars marking them. From the top you could see the evenly spaced holes in the cumulus before it slowly went blue “down below”.
I took a few photos while up there. I placed them on my gliding piccies page at http://www.flybywire.dsl.pipex.com/piccies/Gliding/index.html- look for the section dated for 20th June 2003.
