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

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.