Sunday (9th June) confusion

The weather guru wasnt sure and had us all confused over what advection was - its simple really 
durr!

Anyway despite that we went flying using the standard technique of throwing gliders skyward until they stuck. Variously different pilots added velco , pritstick(TM) , treacle  and drying weetabix to the upper surfaces of their wings until Phil and Carol tried a Cumulus cloud  - this seemed to do the trick! After that most people got a soaring flight, though those practicing circuits also got a few of those...

In addition a guy came to watch for a while:  the chap used to be a member of the club and was in the Pirat syndicate but then he moved to Canada in 1986. You may remember him – his name is Colin Aldridge.

Wednesday 5th

What the forecasters promised the weather failed to deliver but it was good to see the sun (even if the wind was surprisingly cold).  The forecast was responsible for persuading 5 gliders to be rigged.  Once rigged they waited and waited for the promised thermals and in the end just flew anyway.  When Trevor G and Bob B only get short flights it tells you it isn't easily.  Only 6 of the 33 flights managed 40 or more minutes.  Modesty prevents me from mentioning who was the only person to manage more than an hour (with 1:24) but then I had an incentive - being airborne is a great way to escape hay fever.
Quite a number of Lasham gliders scrapping around near us.  Two dropped in and reported that there were lots of landouts. 

The beginning of June.

What a glorious weekend; the gliders were out in force and so were the dandelions and with a high cloud base there was plenty of flying to be had.
Sunday saw John Parker, Tony Chapman, Jon Scott and Justin Butler, all new members as well as the trial lesson Vanessa have some great flying. This with the regular members who turned up, rigged and flew meant there was an alarming lack of gliders on the ground.

Tim kindly test flew the Ka8 and he carefully checked everything on the glider, then checked the parachute. All was fine and we watched the glider being put through its paces. We still have a Ka8 everyone can fly.

Phil and Carol took off to Burdlip then over the Bicester. Sunday and I nursed sun stroke from Saturday.

I hadn't noticed the sun was quite so strong and even though I drank plenty I just didn't have a strong enough sunscreen on.
It was lovely to see the Swales make it's appearance and like the swallows who also appear from nowhere it took to the sky and disappeared for hours.

























Quite a nice weekend as it happened.

Monday 27th May

I suppose it is not very often that we get 3 consecutive days of flying on a bank holiday weekend but this time we did.
The southerly wind started off reasonably light but as soon as the Puchacz was pulled on line it started to increase........

With a trial lesson booked for 11 am we focused on getting Nigel though his BI acceptance flights, after many cable breaks and other checks these were completed just in time.

As you can see Nigel quickly settled into his new role and promptly took his first victim (sorry punter!) soaring. After a first flight of 8 minutes he then took advantage of the soarable conditions to fly for 20 minutes more.

Despite the wind increasing to around 20 knots it was very smooth with very few gusts and with reasonable thermals some extended flights were achieved, I think Bob managed 30 mins or so.


We only took the Puchacz flying today but it seems JPC wanted to go flying as well!

Thanks to Colin for the photos.


Phil

Sunday 26th not your usual bank holiday weather

My task was to The Mynd (a great gliding club on top of a huge mound of Shropshire earth) and back. Off the wire and straight into a building climb so I started the task vertically followed by a reasonable run to the Cotswold edge. Looking ahead I could see it was blue to the north east of my track line but i thought with a slight bend i would be able to follow the Cu but crossing the Severn it was obvious that the fluffy white magic had run out. I though about heading to the Black Mountains, where I had heard on the radio that the cloud base was 6000ft+ but then I remembered the dragons and the £7 toll charge for a retrieve and so I went for a bimble, first to malmesbury  and then to the edge of the fluffy white things in the west country (sea air I figure) at Frome, from then I stormed down the Vale of Pewsey and then went on to see my sailing club which is under stupidly low and complicated airspace at Reading. All told it made for a lazy but enjoyable 300km flight.

The club class at Lasham tasked the same way and with a stern comp director and task setter they had no choice but to press-on. Most got round at horrifically fast speeds so it must have been working in the blue too...

Saturday 25th

Another Bank Holiday with good weather - the weather system really does seem to have broken down.  I arrived at the airfield at 9:00 to find it had been Bessented - winch and caravan set-up and B1 rigged awaiting it's master's return from work.  Lots of fluffy white things in the sky looking like it was probably already working up there.  Turned out it wasn't as easy to get away as it looked with about a third of the launches just doing circuits.  Even with that miss rate the average flight time was 52 minutes (Jim C's 4:04 and Alan H's 4:00 making significant contributions the average).  Over at the Gibbet there were more multi-coloured duvets floating about than I can ever remember seeing there.  More than one pilot returned with tales of running through sink to a tasty looking cloud only to find it occupied by some of these duvets having escaped from the ridge - well that was their excuse for not getting away.  Lots of gliders passing through too.  One failed to pass and arrived downwind and down hill (turbo tucked away).  Guess they do things differently at Lasham.
Peter E was kept busy with winching for the first hour and then flying a TL and a half day course.  I spent over three and a half hours in the back seat.  33 launches, 23 folks flew and clocked up almost 29 hours of flying. 

Wednesday 22nd

I wasn't able to join "the boys" this week but it wasn't much of a soaring day.  From looking at the logs I see that Paul P early on (2nd launch) set the standard to beat on the first launch with 19 minutes.  It wasn't until two and a half hours later (and a dozen launches) that this was bettered by Bill C with 29 minutes and  a couple of launches later Alan H pipped Bill by a couple of minutes.  Paul P then played a tactical game and regained his crown on the last launch with 32 minutes.

and not forgetting...

..Phil the Parachute Packer (how did Pete miss this alliteration opportunity) appeared after flying to make sure we know how to put on our parachutes correctly.  Sounds easy - hm.  Get it wrong and descend lopsided (resulting in the turning) or fall out of the harness (result somewhat more uncomfortable).  Many thanks to Phil.
The airfield was sporting its first haircut of the year (well, partial haircut) which resulted in an unexpected problem.  After landing and coming swiftly to a standstill, Paul P checked the wheel box to find it bunged up.  Poking around with a screw driver had little effect so the wheel was taken out and this is what was found (the grass, not Nigel or Colin's legs).

Saturday 18 may

Saturday started bright and ended bright. In the middle it was less bright. During the less bright part it was occasionally brighter than the times when it was most least bright. (Claire pour me another glass...)

During the first period of brightness Jim and the ls3 lot decided to rig and Alan brought his skylark out the hangar, so what is it about our hangar at the moment we have skylarks but no swifts or are they swallows and a kestrel in the wol box! Anyway because they had rigged in the bright bit when it got less bright they could take off and soar under the clouds causing the lack of bright. Jim managed to stay away from the most least bright parts and soar for 2 1/2 hours with a wander around but not much sense of cross country. Alan managed to injure his Skylark and so more of his favourite pastime of glider fixing awaits him.

Steve the Soaring Statistician (is that alliteration or does the definitive article prevent that? However Polish and Russian do not use articles so it works nicely as "Steve Statystyk Szybownictwo" or "Стив статистик Скользя") reports:

30 launches and 10:22 flown. 

Longest flight – Jim 2:29

4 other flights of over 50 minutes

14 folks flew

Highest flown that I heard was Richard to 3,700

Sometimes the wind is confused, sometimes Jim is confused.

Alliteration allows "Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers" so I think articles are allowed, but then if we are pickling peppers then we might as well be Polish anyway.

A welcome visitor?

Saturday witnessed a flock of swallows investigating the innards of the vehicle container - curious we thought. Could this be because of the kestrel that appears to be nesting in Paul Bryant's owl box? If so we might have poo-free wings for a month or so before the brood fledge.

Originally posted by Colin

Thursday 16th

Good call from Colin to move Wednesday to Thursday.  Unfortunately, it meant I was not able to be there so I'm just reporting from what I've seen in the log.
Paul P proved there was some soaring to be had with 29 minutes off the first launch but it was over 2 hours and a dozen launches later before anyone else managed to do anything much better than a circuit.  That was Ken R's second attempt in HZD (ASW 15) in which he took second longest flight of the day honours with 1:11.  From that point on most flights were longer than basic circuits.  The longest flight?  Peter E - once more in HZD.
10:46 flown off 30 launches - somewhat better than the 9 launches over the whole of the previous weekend.

Sutton Bank Expedition

Well we are all now back from our week at Sutton Bank and I'm sure a great time was had by all.

We are always at the mercy of the weather, even more so on a club expedition but in the end we were able to fly on 6 out of the 7 days we were there. Indeed after the first few days we had flown ridge, wave and thermal flights.

Pete Ellison on tow.

                                                                                                                                                               Due to reasonable SW or WSW winds we had 3 days where the ridge was working well, the last day (Friday) was especially good with strong climbs to cloud base (which was only 1700 ft) meaning that we could ridge soar quite a distance from the site. Pushing forward from the ridge we all encountered good lift and by following the energy line were able to reach Thirsk which is 5k or so out.



Monday started off as a light ridge day but later on wave developed a short distance from the club and everyone started taking aerotows to try and contact it. Somehow Carol and I leapfrogged the queue (not our fault honest!) and launched before Pete and Chris in the Puchacz. We managed to contact wave after taking a 2,800 ft tow and climbed up to around 5,000 ft before the wave collapsed and we had to made a quick descent. Unfortunately the Puchacz missed out on getting into wave as they reached it just as it collapsed and ended up being dumped by the tug  at 2,000 ft (cloudbase) some way from the club. Luckily they managed to get back OK but I think it was marginal!

                                                                                                                                                                 On Tuesday Carol and I made use of some good climbs to fly out towards York. We had intended to fly with Chris towards Pocklington but a mix up in communications meant that we set off without him. Just south of York it all went blue and as other gliders were reporting challenging conditions ahead  we diverted to Rufforth (photo above) before moving unto Ripon. We did try to go on to Barnard Castle where Chris had headed but we started to get low so tip toed back to Dishforth in search of lift and after gaining enough height made a run back to Sutton bank. Meanwhile Rod and Paul had a cracking flight in the Puchacz having pulled off tow at 1,500 ft in strong lift and climbed off the clock to 5,000 ft! We eventually met up with them over Dishforth some 18 k out from Sutton Bank.

Also whilst up there we met up with Annette (Purcell) who was visiting SB with her partner Graham, those of you who have been at the club for a while will remember Annette. She now instructs at Lasham and Talgarth and hopes to visit Shalbourne in the near future to meet up with old friends.

Finally Paul commented that he was only happy if he could see the Sutton Bank White Horse as that was the only landmark he knew........................................................So we made him a special hat!

                                                                                                                                         .....................................now everywhere he looks he can see the white horse!

As usual we were made very welcome by the Yorkshire Gliding Club and can't wait to go back up there again.

A short video of the week is available here:  http://youtu.be/A8dSfca_yX8

Phil

Sutton Bank Exped

Well what can I say!

The reason for a lack of a report is simply down to the fact that we have been getting rather a lot of flying in since we got here. On Saturday the ridge was working and many had flights of over two hours.On Sunday some of us contacted wave and climbed to just 5000 ft before the wave collapsed and we had to make a speedy descent before we lost sight of the ground. Monday was thermic and mostly blue but we still managed over two hours of local soaring each.

Today fluffy white clouds appeared so Carol and I flew a small task of Sutton Bank, York, Ripon and back climbing to 5000 ft over Rufforth.

As I write Chris is still flying last heard of near Barnard Castle, we have warmed up the retrieve just in case!


More later.........................oh is that my mobile?


Phil

not your usual bank holiday monday...

It was sunny for a start with those fluffy white things in the sky!

Whilst I set a task that seemed to be all about Oxford, 323km in total, at rivar they all enjoyed the sun.

A day to put the top down and enjoy the spring sunshine - so Bill did... flying his t21

It's mine - all mine!

Since joining the syndicate Richard has become rather possessive when it's his turn to fly.

5 May... a passing fancy

So today I told the rest of the Compette that my one objective for the day was not to get lower than 700' above Shalbourne which is broadly what's happened the last couple of times I've gone past - although I hasten to point out that as ever it proved thermic and I got away. Well, as those who were around today will know it was pretty much 8/8 most of the day - but we set a Compette task regardless - LAS/CBN/YTT/RIV/LAW/LFW - and indeed it proved possible to get round. I however took a calculated risk to go via RIV very low into a thermal and missed the bubble. As I rolled to a halt, the landrover drew up alongside, towed me back to the launch point offering the first cable.. I declined saying "no no, after you Mark (and you're grounded forever if you don't mark a thermal)" - which he duly did and I got away slowly and pootled gently back through the gloom to Lasham. Proves what's possible even on a duff day! Have fun tomorrow - forecast is excellent and I fancy I WILL successfully pass RIV...

Mayday mayday - summer's coming

... well,spring anyway; it's mayday.  So called because summer doesn't come in smoothly, but springs to and fro between extremes.  Today we had a cracking good day, with climbs to over 5000ft and most flights of extended duration, over three hours in at least one case.  The best Paul McG found on his check flight was 4kt ... sink, but then made up for it by getting his two hours :) ...sadly, it's no longer a badge requirement :( , but well done anyway.

Return to Winter (Sunday 28th)

A day that had everyone going back to their cars to find more layers.  The forecast clear sky for the start of the day did not materialise so it was a day for seeing who could break into double digits with their flight.  Mark P was first with 10 minutes but his crown was immediately stolen by Rob J with 11 minutes who then got pipped by Paul P with 12.  Paul's record looked safe as we returned to single digit flight times but we did not allow for the Trevor Effect.  He pulled a 26 minute flight out of thin air.  Last flight of the day was equally unexpected as James W started circling off the top of the launch to return 22 minutes later from 2,400.

The other high spot (different kind of high) was Jon S taking his first solo.  Well, first solo in something without an engine and inflight services.

Sunshine and showers (27th April)

A day that was forecast to go either way went the wrong way... Tha'ts not to say things didn't get fun (climbs up the edges of cbs) nor that good training couldn't be had before the frequency of showers got too great.

More on Saturday

A day when the DI couldn't win with picking ends.  What little wind there was came from the east sometime with a bit of north sometimes with some south making it no-win with our north-south field.  Having changed ends a hiking group appeared somewhat off the bridleway.  Although they refused our offers of transport to the other end of the field they were happy to accept our suggested detour that would enable us to launch with minimal delay.  Unfortunately, their ability to follow instructions did not match their willingness.  So long delay as they trudged their way - who knows if they ever found their way to their final destination.
Meanwhile, away from the frustrations on the ground those airborne were finding thermals in the blue.  With no headwind to help (and sometimes a touch of tail wind) launch heights were modest and getting away took a little luck and determination.  When Trevor needs a second launch you know it's not easy.  A group of 3 kites helped me avoid just doing a circuit.  They kindly lead me to a 5 knotter.  Later on time to return home so flew back from Andover pausing only to circle a glider in a field a few times and then full steam ahead.  Back at Rivar pulled up straight into an unmarked thermal.  Since it was blue I decided to be helpful and mark it for the gliders about to launch.  The lift just got better and better until I was seeing 8.5 on the averager.  At 5,500 it dawned on me I'd have to replan my circuit.  No problem - went to the north of the M4 for my high key point.
Despite the hour of launching lost 31 launches were clocked up and the average flight time was over 1 hour (just).  24 members flew and 7 private gliders rigged. After we packed the hangar a visitor from the Park landed to claim all 3 legs of his Silver in one flight.
That glider in the field?  The previous blog entry reveals it wasn't the prince of land-outs.  It was one of ours - all I will say that there wasn't a hazard in the field until after he landed.

Saturday 20th April.

Cracking little flight; Rivar- Lyneham- Abingdon Bridge and back.

Sunday 7th April

Looking at the top cover and change in conditions from Saturday you would have been forgiven for thinking that Sunday was not going to offer much in the way of soaring..........how wrong you were!

As Nigel needed to be signed off to go on his BI course we took a couple of launches in the Puchacz expecting to fly circuits as the previous flights had been less than 10 mins. Our first flight lasted 17 minutes and the second a whole 40 minutes! The lift was so good (4-6 kts) Nigel took the one thermal to 4,000 ft and finished off his BI training..........well done Nigel :-)

Flying JPC Rod Harris managed a solo flight of 40 minutes, Mark Patterson got 1 hr 2 mins also in JPC but Graham Tanner flying with Jim Clarke in the Puchacz flew the longest with 1 hr 7 mins.

Oh and Jon Scott was introduced to the wonderful world of cable breaks by Jim!

Phil

Saturday 6th April

With miserable March disappearing over the horizon Saturday morning dawned promising a  change in fortunes and the good soaring conditions which were forecasted a few days beforehand didn't let us down.

The change in the weather brought many members out of hibernation and the parking area was full by late morning.

First flight to test out JPC after it's ARC renewal was at 9:30 the launch taking me to 2,100 ft with cloudbase at 2,800 ft. As the day progressed the lift and cloudbase increased to such an extent that we had to put a limit on soaring as it was quite possible to stay up for quite some time. 

With all the club gliders in the air at once this was the scene at the launch point.. 

With good launches and strong climbs to excess of 4,500 ft we managed 42 launches with 18 flights managing a flight of over 1 hour.

 Chris Bessent and Nigel Burt took the Puchacz on its first XC flight of the season to Lyneham and back surprising us all by returning by air :-) Jim Clarke took the Nimbus for a run round Devizes, Didcot and Oxford, Richard Dann took the LS3 away for a few hours and Darren McKillop took me and JPC (almost) to the M4 junction at Hungerford at a reassuring (but unnecessary!) 4,800 ft :-)

Finally congratulations must go to John Goodwin who was sent solo by Carol

Phil

Miserable March

The Easter weekend rescued March from being our worst month in 6 years (my stats don't go back further than that).  It was narrowly better than our previous worst March for number of launches (by 2) but far worse for flying hours of 17.5 compare to previous worst of 22 hours (all other years have been between 60 and 90 hours).  Hardly surprising with no flying between the 6th and the 27th.  With only 5 flying days in the month that's the lowest of any month in the past 6 years - matched only by (you guessed it) January this year.
Enough of this gloom - fingers crossed for an Awesome April.

Easter Monday

After a couple of good days we weren't expecting too much but the Lasham weather guru had forecast thermals by 10:00 BST.  With 8/8 cover and low it then dawned us what the date was - April Fools Day!  The few of us there admired Alan P's Olly, had lunch and then took the Puchacz down to throw at the sky.  1,500' in a 80 degree cross-wind and still 100' or so below cloud came as a pleasant surprise.  Certainly plenty of height for the annual checks that a couple of folks were wanting.  Some scraps of lift around but nothing substantial enough to soar in and substantial lift would have been needed to compensate for the drift.  As the afternoon progressed the wind picked up and landings got more lively.  After 8 launches we'd had enough and packed the toys away.

Easter Treat

After a string of damp weekends the forecast for the Easter weekend was dry at last. Everyone was complaining that it was bitterly cold, however there is an upside to cold spring days as a little sun on the ground can generate some really good good thermals.

Saturday was largely overcast so only a few people managed to get into usable lift. Easter meant that a number of members were away on family duties but we still managed over 20 flights on the day.

Easter Sunday dawned with clear skys and the start of British Summer Time giving an incentive to get to the airfield early. The combination of sun on cold ground did exactly what was expected and two of our new members were treated to some extended soaring practice with the vario showing 8 kts up and the altimeter reaching 4400' above site. Unfortunately the overcast returned in the afternoon making getting established more difficult.

Nice to have a bank holiday weekend without the usual rain. great to have some super thermals.

Saturday 30th March

Saturday turned out to be a bit of a mixed bag.

Most of the 28 flights were less than 10 mins but if you were fortunate to launch at the right time extended flights were possible.

Carol and I found some lift to the south west of the airfield and squeezed out a reasonable 1 hr 6 mins but Jim flying the Nimbus made use of the convergence to reach 3800 ft and stayed airborne for a creditable 1 hr 36 mins.

Later on Carol and Chris in the Janus made use of the same convergence line as Jim and flew from Vernham Dean to just north of Whitchurch climbing to 3800 ft without turning.

Lets hope this is the start of the soaring season!

Phil

1st day of Spring

PAH - another non-flying day

Wednesday 27th

3 weeks of no flying activity must be some kind of a record but today the lean period came to an end.  Too much east in the wind to get the ridge working, bitterly cold but cloud base around 2,000' and we could fly.  Then there was the bonus of some soaring.  Bob B was the first to discover there was something there when he returned in the Vega with tales of a 50' gain in height.  Inspired by this I jumped into the K8 launched to 1,750 and gracefully descended to 1,250' at which point there was a beep.  Not easy but I managed to match Bob's gain of height, some more determined flying doubled that and eventually back up to launch height and on to 1,900'.  24 launches in total, 2 over half an hour and another 9 made double digits.

Sir Ranulph Fiennes turns back from expedition to summit Rivar Hill

24 march 2013. Today Sir Ranulph Fiennes abandoned his attempt to be the first man to summit rivar hill, unsupported and without recourse to either supplementary oxygen or a jumper.

Local pilots who were there fettling a Libelle reported conditions as being somewhat wintery with the mercury at -2c and the wind sock standing horizontal, well it would have if we'd been daft enough to raise it.

Non flying, but trailer tidying.

Apart from working, which I seem to do a lot these days the weather has been poor and I missed the opportunity to fly on Thursday, great as it was.
I've been working on my trailer and glider getting it ready for the cross country season. This consists of replacing all the bits of tape and wire that were holding various parts together which had been done on the hoof as last year progressed. This seems to be the format for each year I fly.
To do my repairs and maintenance I moved my glider down to a friends house where I plugged in a small greenhouse heater as well as a dehumidifier.
I also placed two data loggers, one in the trailer with heater and dehumidifier and the other in his unheated garage 6 feet away and they record relative humidity, dew point and temperature.
From the results, which are only over a period of 8 days it would seem quite a good idea to do the same at the end of each season.

The main difference, for those who are interested is that the relative humidity, or as I like to call it (the B%*&*&+$ Osmosis in my wings, dammit), is one  average 71.5% in the garage while inside the trailer its 59.9%. The temperature in the garage averaged 3.90 degrees C while the trailer was a balmy 4.89 degrees.
So the conclusion, if there is one, is that it's wet and damp inside your trailer if left alone. It's also cold and possibly lonely.
The sharp peaks in the second chart are (I believe) where the dehumidifier turns on and off.

I may keep the logger in the trailer with a control in a shaded area through the summer to see just how much we back the poor things.
 From: My study, warmer and dryer than the horrible view out of the window!

Saturday 9th

When the Met Office said "low cloud" that meant barely above the trees.  Sufficient for us to derig JPC and get it into the workshop.

I see there's no blog entries for the previous weekend or Wednesday but there was flying on each of these days clocking up 58 launches and 6:26 flying time

Fab Feb

After the worst January on record* February was a lot kinder.  Only 20 launches more than the average for the month but for flying time it was 3 times the average, almost double the best previous time for the month.
The start of our flying year is October so we are almost half way through the "year".  Given the rubbish winter it's quite surprising to see the year-to-date stats aren't too bad.  Number of launches modest but better (just) than 3 other years,  Total flying time is a different story - a new record.
Just to put those numbers into perspective: the first five months of the year account for 27% of launches and only 15% of flying time.

* Comparisons made over 6 years as those are the stats I have readily to hand

Sunday 24th

Report from Colin:-

Despite early protestations that the ridge wasn't really working, eleven people managed an average of 43 minutes airtime each off 17 launches, with Ken Reid and I scoring 3 hours between us. Admittedly the the 2200ft launches did help a little, but forgive my skepticism if by any measure I reckon that was a good ridge day.

Saturday 23rd

A day the brass monkeys stayed at home but not some of our hardy members.  Once the winch and caravan were in position it was a wait-and-see if cloudbase moves up.  Those patient enough to hang about to almost 15:00 were rewarded with the chance to see if the ridge was working.  Everybody managed more than a 10 minute flight and the conclusion was that in the K8 it might have been possible to use the bits of ridge lift that was there but not in the Puchacz (with so few remaining we only hauled the Puchacz to the bottom end of the field).  Rod took the day's honours with 19 minutes (thanks to a thermal in which he managed to gain 200 feet).

Sun 17th - Sun and soaring!

As forecast/promised it was sunny and thermic. Those that weren't there - I told you so! Most of the day the thermals were quite broken and difficult to connect/stay with but Pablo and Jim in the K13 along with Trevor in the K8 connected and had around an hour's soaring in a street/convergence/magic lift line to the north of the club. It seemed to be a white-gliders-don't-soar day for most of the rest! Being a SE wind, it was vital that people laid off enough and several didn't in spite of briefing. Nigel 'You thought I was nice until today' Burt was winching for much of the day, he came and apologised for chopping the first launch he wasn't happy with, but grinned more and more widely as the day went on and he found a new careless pilot to dump. It's a serious point - you MUST pay attention to crosswinds else when it's SE you will not get to the top of the launch. Nice to see Alicia and Tim from Upavon which was closed for the day, they also stayed for the XC Q&A later and asked most of the Q; hope they were happy with the A... Soaring again - summer is almost upon us (but meanwhile keep wearing the ski gear to prevent important bits freezing off) Liz

Saturday 16th

The forecast fog in the morning did not materialise but there was a low (750') cloudbase that took a couple of hours to lift.  Not a lot of thermal activity but a few members managed to extend their flights.  Steve B being the first to prove there was "something" with a 22 minute flight.  I followed him in the K8 only to have a graceful descent from the 1,900' launch without encountering any trace of a thermal.  Those who launched around 14:45 (Steve G in the K8 and Rob J in his Cirrus) did best with 29 and 31 minutes respectively.
We were pleased to welcome new member John G who, despite a year since last flying (at another club), had not forgotten how to handle a glider.
4:23 hours flown off 26 launches

Friday 15th - AGM

A good turnout for the AGM at the Shalbourne Village Hall.  Colin delivered the Chaiman's report and said that the club is in the best state it has ever been on the equipment front but the we need to increase the membership.  His priority for the coming year is to strengthen the membership.  Steve reported on matters financial.  Although expenditure did exceed income the value of the equipment gained balanced that out.  The level of trial lesson evening activity was disapponting.  A proposal to increase the launch fee and soaring time a modest amount to compensate for the reduced TLE activity was agreed.  Phil reported on the recent CFI conference and his plans for cross-country training this year.

The exisitng commitee were all prepared to re-stand for election (fortunately!) and were all duly elected back into their posts.  Unfortunately (yet again) no-one offered themselves for the post of either Equipment Officer or Field Officer.

Those of us who moved on to The Plough after the AGM were welcomed with complementary sandwiches and cakes - far to much for the few of us to do justice to so "doggy bags" were taken home and those flying on Saturday enjoyed Marion's excellent cakes.

Disclaimer:  This is decided not an "offical" report of the AGM just a few notes from memory a couple of days later.  Nigel (esteemed club secretary) will no doubt be publishing the offical minutes at some time.

Wednesday 6th

A day for careful handling of the gliders on the ground (and picketing) and 70 knot approaches, however, that did mean launches of over 2,200' in the K13s and 2,000' in the Vega.  The K8 (unsurprisingly) stayed in the hangar.  Too much thermic activity for the ridge to work consistently but it could still be used - just had to watch out for the patches of 8 down.  Bob B took the second launch of the day in the Vega and set the target at 45 minutes - nobody beat it.  Longest flights were in the Vega, the 3 other launches in it clocked up more than an hour and a half between them.
The Puchacz completed it's ARC was rigged and test flown by Bob B who took Andy B along for ballast.  Good to see the inspector having faith in his work :)
Just over 5 hours of flying from 15 launches.  Donut service was resumed

Saturday 2nd February

The prediction for Saturday was for a ridge day and though it worked to some extent it was nowhere as good as in October. However, the day was to get exceptional when the thermals took hold, not what is expected at the start of February in the UK. Even the K13 took a trip out to Hungerford and reached 3500', getting back took 2 mins and 600'.

Given recent rain it was impressive to see how much the field had dried out. The flying statistics were equally impressive:
41 launches
nearly 22hours total flying time in just over 7 hours
7 flights over a hour, longest 1hr 58min
21 members flew, including two new ones
and Pablo had his first solo flight off a winch launch and in the UK.

To round off the day, even though I was duty instructor, I was able to get in my first flight in the LS3 since buying into it, with enough thermals left to get half an our in it.

Good fun had by all.

Wednesday 30th

At least it wasn't raining and the field became less boggy as the day progressed.  Unfortunately, there was a strong, blustery, cross-wind so no flying.  Main activity of the day was clearing the branches overhanging the hangar and the club house.  With the size and height of these it needed the services of a qualified tree surgeon and that was provided by www.lparkertrees.co.uk who did an excellent job.

The rest of us carted the "trimmings" and tried to trigger a thermal.

Sat 2 Feb - was it really February?

02/02/13

Was this really a Feburary day. Streeting from the north and two runs towards Hungerford in the clubs K13.

I think the photos says it all.

G

Annual dinner and awards

The annual dinner took place on the 11th January complete with its own Oscar style award ceremony.

"The PR award is going to Graham Tanner in recognition of his work in being the co-ordinator in chief for the TLEs which helps raise the public awareness of the club.  I've not been at all creative in what to award - have just gone for a bottle of wine."

Stephen O

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"As Treasurer, I thought I should make a finance-related award, so I have decided to give it to someone who has saved us loads of loot by repairing and making new items which would otherwise have had to be bought, which would be a bit of a drogue, so the award goes to Paul Bryant.  Your penalty for this is you get to keep this (Member of the Year Cup) safe and polished for a year, but I hope you will enjoy this (bottle of wine) in mitigation".

Steve B

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"Spirit of Gliding Award" aka "Best Field Landing".

"Runner up has to be Ken Reid for local soaring in the K8 and landing out within site of the White Horse at Alton Barnes. Ken obviously needed to be reminded that the K8 doesnt quite have the penetration of the Duo Discus.

The clear winner is of course Chris Bessent. Chris has had many many field landings this year, too many to mention them all, but the most notable occurred on the 22nd August. The weather gods appeared to be smiling for a change so a 300 was set to Elkstone (North of Stroud) and Sackville Farm. The weather of course deteriorated to a mostly blue grovel and when given the choice of turning Northampton and heading for home Chris declined and "bravely" pushed on straight into a field at Milton Keynes an epic 90 km from home as the crow flys.

However Chris tasks did extract the most out of an otherwise mediocre summer and it is this spirit that has earned him this award.

A 2013 Aeronautical chart will be issued to Chris upon its release."

Jim

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"After having a struggle to come up with an idea, I have decided to give my award to Paul Prentice for having the courage to fly as P2 with me as P1 on my first mutual flight, it being his first mutual post the "Heavy" landing."

Nigel

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The inaugural "DCFI Award for Flying" goes to Philip Morgan

A citation is out thus,

"On a warm and sunny day back in May, yes we did have one, Phil took off to fly around the country, for some reason (unknown) he chose to follow Chris. Chris decided to crash, fortunately for Chris he didn't, but more fortunately for Phil he decided he couldn't watch and in flagrant disrespect of the rules of sea turned his back on his friend, charge and wing-man and resumed his task onwards.  Sometime later, actually 5hrs 24mins later a blur of an LS3 beat flew a sedate and orderly circuit and landed adjacent to the launch point.
Hence and thus, mainly for dereliction of duty of CFI, Phil gets the "DCFI Award for Flying", secondarily he gets it for his first 300 flight and a Gold and Diamond leg.”
The prize, a winch launch voucher, to be claimed retrospectively for a flight in 2012 of 300 or more kilometres.


Pete S

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Colin awarded a bottle of wine to Peter Mason in recognition of doughnuts… that he purchased… …every Wednesday… …for Colin to eat… …and everyone else.

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In recognition of fast progress to solo, Phil awarded a bottle of wine to Selvam.

Sunday 13 Jan - Happy New Year!!!

I seem to be the first person posting this year - and what a nice start to the year! As forecast, sunny and thermic, kicking off the ridge and streeting gently. OK, it wasn't what you'd call balmy, we did an audit and 5 layers appeared to be the popular clothing choice - nobody was too hot, that's for sure and anything exposed went blue in seconds. But with the wind straight down the strip, launches even in the 2-seaters were exceeding 2000', well above cloud tops initially, and always pinging you straight to cloudbase which probably peaked at around 1700'. Selvam took advantage of the nice weather to triple his number of solo launches, Darren proved that after a 2-month lay-off, he'd not forgotten how to do it, we all got to salute the CFI when he appeared and everyone had a good time except possibly when the back-seat drivers got bung-pull-itis (bit of an epidemic of it today I fear!) Thanks all who came and contributed, Liz

Saturday 8th December

Saturday saw the K8 emerge from the hangar for the first time in a few weeks and rewarded us with launches up to 1,900 feet.  Pleasant day for the time of year and we managed 23 launches.  Steve took longest flight honours with 13 minutes - that's Steve's B, G and O, each getting same time.

Sunday 23rd

Dry day, wet airfield and the C team were in attendance just waiting for anyone escaping Christmas shopping.  Only our illustrious chairman fell into that category.  We decided to wait for an hour before getting the toys out in which time a shower came through which put an end to any ideas of the field drying out a little.  Broken guttering on the clubhouse was fixed (mainly involved watching and passing things to Chris K at the top of the stepladders) and Colin B and I rubbed down part of a wing.
Hopefully with Christmas out of the way and the days getting longer we'll start to see a bit more flying.

Sunday 16th Early Celebration

As promised Sunday was the better day of the weekend and those arriving at the airfield were greeted with a clear sky - and a winch problem. Fortunately the #2 winch, on its new trailer, was ready do go and after a short delay we were ready to go.

You don't expect much in December, except cold and misting canopies, but for once the conditions were ideal. After three flights with me in the back, Selvam convinced me he was ready so his fourth flight of the day was on his own. Just in time, about 20 minutes later a big heavy shower arrived forcing a quick return to the hangar.

Well done Selvam.

Saturday 15 Dec Blue sky, sunshine....

...and nobody to fly I sat in glorious isolation until just before 10am when Ken, Graham and Richard arrived and Ken, Richard and I then picked on Graham, making him to multiple Qfe/Qnh /Flight level calculation examples whilst we sat back, drank tea and made helpful comments. Then we went home again.

Wednesday 12th December

Another modest turnout where check flights were the order of the day.

With Colin still under the weather I made good use of a day off and persuaded Chris Keating, Rob Jarvis and Rod Harris to fly their annual checks with me.

After much bung pulling, spinning and general out of positioning all three passed their annual and P1 mutual checks with ease so well done to them :-)

Paul Bryant also demonstated some very capable spin recoveries so is now "Off Checks" as well.

With only a light SE wind launches to 1800 ft were the norm but with zero lift the 3 longest flights only acheived 10 minutes. All in all we only managed to log 25 flights but everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.


Phil

Wednesday 5th December

A modest turnout to see if there would be enough of a northerly to provide some fun on the ridge.  It did provide launches to 2,000 feet in the K13's but limited ridge lift.  Still, most folks got into double digit flight times but the best on offer was 20 minutes.  Most of that was spent doing micro-beats (i.e. figure's of 8) in the bowl.  Modesty stops me from revealing who had that flight.

Wednesday 28th November -Alternative Ridge Day

Seeing that the Ridge at Parham would be working Rod,Chris, Paul, Carol and myself trailed our gliders down there to have a day of ridge running.

All you need is a 1,000 ft aerotow and then you are away...... some more away than others....read on!

Rod and Paul in their Puchacz managed 2 hours and Carol and I just 1 3/4 hrs. Chris was hoping to do epic things but unfortunately pushed on a little too far and only managed about 20 mins. Not wanting to say who landed out but the figures speak for themselves :-)

All in all a good ridge day with plenty of opportunities to get down and dirty........again some more than others. Still it was a good field we pulled the glider out of even though it meant I had to reverse the Janus Trailer a good way down a narrow winding road in the dark to get back to the main road!


Phil

Wednesday 28th: The north wind doth blow...

... and we shall have LIFT.  Maybe not on a par with the last northerly day but lots of extended flights.  Bob B set the benchmark on the first launch of the day in the Vega with 39 minutes.  Steve B and I rigged our gliders and Steve was rewarded with almost an hour off 2 launches and I got just over the hour off one launch.

Sunny Sunday 18th...

...Yes, as usual superb E team weather! Whilst cold, it was still )well, very light cross-wind-with-a-hint-of-tail) and sunny so it was very pleasant out on the field. We had two trial lessons both of whom had a great time, all three two-seaters were out as well as the K8 & Vega so thanks to Steve O for helping out when a rating in excess of BI was needed. This enabled us to give quite a lot of flying to deserving club members Steve T, Selvam and Jim McC - good progress all round. Equally deserving (I have to say that as he's an important E team member!) is Graham, to whom congrats are due for soloing the Puch today for the first time. Thanks to all who were there making it happen and having a nice day out!

Remembrance Sunday

Was a beautiful sunny Autumn or Winter's day depending on your point of view regarding seasonal matters. A light breeze and mostly cloudless sky made the air temp an irrelevancy. Mostly circuits with new member Paolo showing the South American way of doing these things albeit if my attempts to convince him that the local Buzzard population were in fact Andean Condors were unsurprisingly rebuked...

Phil and Ken went soaring, it was a full cat kind of a day.

Alan and Paul even rigged.

View from JMX, 11/11/12

A trip to Lleweni Parc

After the memorable Saturday ridge day a week or so ago Carol and I towed the Janus up to Lleweni Parc with great hopes of having a week flying the ridge. Unfortunately it appears the weather had not seen the forecast because whilst the BBC morning forecast was showing moderate westerlies (ideal for ridge running) we were actually looking out of the cottage window at a definite southerly flow!

As there is only so much staring up at the sky I can do and getting a bit twitchy I took the opportunity to at least have a fly in the Falke and explore the ridge.

Certain parts of the ridge were sort of working and in a few places working well, so well in fact that I managed to convince P1 to turn off the engine and whilst at the controls soared the ridge the 8 miles or so to Ruthin. It wasn't until I turned back that P1 suddenly remembered that this part of the flight was actually not costing me anything as his costs were worked out on engine time not flying time, he duely restarted the engine!

Here is a short video of the flight:

As you can see from the approach the tarmac strip is a bit narrow and it is vital that you do not depart it as the ground either side is very boggy. We were told that if we did roll onto the grass "sanctions would be made" , what ever that means. The closeness of the bales certainly concentrates the mind but still I was quite happy that I did get a chance to soar the ridge even if it was in a Falke :-)

Phil

Sunday 4th - Lovely!

Ok, so it rained a little. Ok, perhaps not 'little' as such - in fact I don't think I've ever seen the roads approaching Shalbourne as flooded as they were on the way up this morning. And ok yes, it was sort of snowing as I arrived at the field and you ideally didn't want to be attempting to get to the top without four-wheel drive. But as I've tried to point out, a non-flying day is not the same as a non-learning day, and indeed a few minutes of thinking on the ground can be worth more than many hours of non-targeted bumbling around in the air. And so it was that, after a spot of wheeler-dealing which included rigging Liz's old tent in the clubhouse, James, John and I got on with some training planning. Frequent cups of tea helped stop us freezing as the temperature dropped to 2C but plans were made in time for us to slither down off the field and close up just as it stopped raining. There's a moral here somewhere... possibly...

Saturday 27th - kick yourself if you missed it!

With the promise of a northerly wind and a the end to overcast sky Saturday offered the prospect of some ridge flying. With three club gliders at the launch point by 10 and with 5 private gliders either ready to launch or rigging Chris set off to investigate, only to have the weak link fail on him. Bob had better luck and proved it was indeed soarable. It took a couple more flights before it became clear just how good it was.

On my second flight in the Ka13 I found us climbing back up from 900ft to 1400ft on the ridge where there were others above us including the duo that had managed a 2200ft launch. The best bit was to the east along to Coombe Gibbet though  some ventured further. In my book this was the best ridge flying I've seen at Shalbourne but there was more to come my next flight was in the Puchacz which Jon launched to 1850ft after which we found ridge lift at 1500ft. Later, and back in the Ka13, I was treated to a launch to 2400ft (where did that come from) and there was lift even higher.

Almost every flight got some soaring, few were shorter than 20 mins and a number were longer than 2 hours. 37 flights in total and a rough totting up of flight time indicates we we collectively did more than 24 hours in the air. Not bad for the end of October!

Why was it so good you might ask. Good question. There was certainly some thermal activity which helped though you couldn't turn it it for long without disapearing down wind. Wave was mooted but there was no clear evidence of it and it would be very unusual for wave influence to stay in the same place all day in our part of the country. Most likely it is something to do with wind speed and direction from ground to operating heights. It will be interesting to see what the Met men have to say.

Many big grins seen today, it really want something special. Many thanks to those who made it happen.

Saturday 20th - E Team

Ah yes, E team day; and the weather didn't quite do as promised but it wasn't far off. I drove up to the field through dense fog all the way eventually popping out at the top of the hill driving up the field. It was a fairly slow start as we waited for the fog to clear enough for safety but when I did brave a launch it looked like this. This is the view to the south - you can see Conholt Hill then nothing... Splendid. We didn't manage to beat the Oct launch record - only managed 39 after the slow start and with another pause when the fog finally got organised and lifted and we had to wait while it got high enough to fly a circuit beneath! We also didn't manage any soaring as such although Bob and Chris both reported an area of 0 sink for a couple of minutes on one flight. The rest of the day the air was as silky smooth as you could want and there was not a breath of wind on the ground, whilst the sun made sundogs and had a pronounced halo most of the day and Bob also managed to spot a circumzenithal arc or whatever it's called when you get an arc the other way round above the sun. And it was warm enough not to need a jacket all day. Perfect!!!

Sunday 14th - "If this is winter flying, bring it on"

"If this is winter flying, bring it on" summed up the flying for the fortunate few who turned up.  Someone else said "return of the summer" and was promptly corrected to remove the word "return".  They say a picture is worth a thousand words so here is a picture of the launch point.

First launch of the day was 50% longer than the previous days longest flight and the second one was 8 times longer.  Half a dozen flights of around and hour and more.  Early launches (around midday) had to work hard to use the weak broken lift to get to cloudbase at just over 2,000' but within a couple of hours pilots were getting climbs of 4+ knots up to 3,700. 
Duty ab-initio Selvam M kept duty instructor Tim R busy and the 2 TLs and one returning TL were looked after by Peter E and Richard D.  Despite Tim's onset of vertigo (what else would account for Selam's failure to get to the top of some launches) we clocked up 10:41 flying time off 20 launches.

Saturday 6th

Hive of activity in the morning with club gliders being dragged to the far end of the field and 4 private glider being rigged.  Clear blue sky but the possibility of thermal activity at some point, northerly straight down the strip offering high launches but not enough of it to bring the ridge to life.  Visibility was exceptional.
K8 back on-line so I test flew it with a 2,000' launch and put Andrew B's repair to the tailplane through its paces.  At midday, just as the first hints of thermal activity appeared, the Janus had made it's way to the front of the grid (yes, we had a queue for launches) and a black car appears.  Out steps the CFI, already wearing his parachute, steps into the caravan to sign himself off on the flying list, then straight into the Janus and does the first soaring flight of the day - 21 minutes.  Chris, contain yourself as Carol insists the flight was 22:15 because that's what the LNAV said.  I was even dragged over to verify this.  Your choice whether to go with the log or the LNAV.  Doesn't really matter as later Carol and Phil did a 1:40 flight and at 16:30 (after a mass landing and it looked as if the thermic part of the day was at an end) they did a 23 minute "circuit". Not the longest flights of the day though.  Trevor G topped this with a 1:53 flight but the soaring god of the day was Colin B with 2:07.
Jon G converted to the Vega which he then soared off a launch at 17:00.  I was kept busy with annual checks (yup, that time has come back round) but indulged myself by ending the day taking the 52nd launch. Few feet short of the 2,000 this time and a gentle 15 minute drift to earth with the lengthening shadows.

Over17 hours flown off 52 launches.  21 members flew using 8 gliders over 7 hours. A remarkable day for this time of year.  The last time we flew over 50 launches was in June 2011 and the previous highest launch count in October was in 2007 when we did 43