The occurrences and happenings at Shalbourne Soaring Society. A gliding club near Andover, Newbury and Hungerford.

Sundays flights (continued)

As Steve has already said, it was a great day. I noticed Phil jumped in the Puchacz a little later in the afternoon and the thermals were so strong it seemed to do funny things to the glider. Did I spot a chandelle or two?
I tried out my wing cam; apart from the narcissistic element of watching myself on film it's actually a great training tool to self police your flying.

Sunday 19th of is this really February

What a cracking day. 4 club gliders being kept busy plus the LS3 and LS7 rigged.  Stonking - provided you were in the right place at the right time. 4 flights of over and hour (sorry Steve you Wednesday record was short lived - Colin flew the LS3 for 1:35 today) and another 5 of over 30 minutes.  When Pete S had to rely on his third (free) launch to get away you know it took more than just skill.  Climb rates of 5.6 (on the averager) and climbs up to 4,000' QFE were available - so you can now kick yourself for not getting along to partake.  A Duo Discuss from L was seen over the gibet being outclimbed by one of our members (I suspect that might provoke a response from Liz about L folks doing cross-countries).

It was good to see Evelyn return after her hibernation having being distracted from flying by things like getting married.  Just as gliders were being launched for hangar landing our first TL of 2012 appeared.

Thanks Bob for arranging such good weather for your duty day.

Wednesday 15th

Wednesday had it all - ridge, thermals and wave.  The fact the wave was seen in the distance and the thermals interfered with the ridge just meant the lift could not be taken for granted and one had to work at it.  Four club gliders in operation and at times an empty launch point.  The Vega blinked as it emerged from the hangar for the first time this year.  Only 3 launches taken in it but it did clock up 99 minutes of flying time.  Honours for longest flight of the day (and for 2012) went to Steve B with 48 minutes.  12 members flew and we did 22 launches.  JMX was rigged and JPC derigged and into the workshop.

Saturday 11th Feb

Just a nice day to be out enjoying the sun and the banter.  No soaring on offer but just good to get one's bum off the ground after so many non-flying days.  The wind was forecast to go from East to South to North during the day - but there was so little of it that it made not a jot of difference.  A good day for check flights too and spot landing with no wind to help.  Comment was made whilst observing the K8 landing approach "you'd think Bob would be able to fly straight with all the experience he has".  After that most K8 pilots appeared to take the opportunity to practice side-slip approaches.  The winch driver gave a nicely timed (requested) launch failure which Chris K took in his stride and did a well judged reciprocal landing back to the launch point.  James W when asked to demonstrate a spin and recovery showed off with a left spin off a right turn.

23 launches with Bob B being the only one to make double digit flight time (just).

The following picture was taken by Bob B of a blue glider on a blue day

Granddad Phil!

Congratulation to Phil who became a granddad on Monday! You old git!

Wave flying.

I posted a link to this on GPN a little while ago, Steve B spotted it and promptly told me off for not posting it to the blog.
Well worth a read if you've ever been wave flying, or ever intend to, albeit you may not want to after reading....

http://home.earthlink.net/~shp1/wave_sim.html

Saturday 4th Feb - polar bears seen on field

I was extremely pleased that it had warmed up a little from when I got up by the time I was ready to leave for Shalbourne - it had heated up to -9.3C as I left home. Hmmmm!!!

With the ground temperatures that low and a forecast of snow arriving sometime between 12 and 3 it seemed to me (effete southern jesse that I am) inappropriate to try to get flying so we looked at some navigation and map reading, and how to use SeeYou to analyse flight traces.

With the electric heaters on and quite a few mad people turning up, it was quite festive in the Roundout. But we declared a close on the day in time for everyone to be home before the promised snow arrived - and of course then it arrived later than forecast. But in this instance, better safe than sorry...