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

Sunday 22nd

The trick was to launch in the first part of the day - anyone launching after 14:00 got little more than circuits.  A modest turnout and only one private glider rigged (well, it had been left rigged from the previous day).  Just under 10 hours flown off 19 launches - 4 of those accounted for from the 2 flights in the afore mentioned private glider (the lovely LS3-17).
Visits from a couple of former members - Tony Palmer and Clive Harder.  Tony had just stopped by to say hello and asked to be remembered to those long enough in the club to remember him.  Clive took a couple of launches, unfortunately not until after 14:00 change.

Midsummer's day

A busy day at the Gibbet


Sunday 15th

Certainly a lot quieter day than the previous Sunday - maybe due to it being Fathers Day or could some have been distracted by events going on in Brazil?  No chance of folks dropping in from other clubs - with pretty much complete cloud cover and a base of 1,800 they wouldn't have strayed far from their home clubs (where hopefully last weeks drop-ins were practicing doing proper circuits).  The sun did make some brief appearances but those who had the foresight to bring their coats were wearing them.  The occasional, weak, thermal and some slight ridge lift resulted in 20+ minutes being the target for the day.  Top dog honours going to Phil+Carol and Alan P.  A good training day for those needing to refine their take-off and landings and for instructors needing to complete revalidation checks.  A modest 6 hours flown off 38 launches.

Saturday 14th June

The Puchacz resisted rigging for a while, but finally yielded to the menaces of the half a dozen people fighting with it. Rodney waited patiently for the call, but determination finally triumphed over expertise so he went off to set up the winch. Early clag and the threat of showers it seems diminished attendance, so the Puch was washed and the toys put away.

The hayfield having been cleared, the mower was deployed to tidy up the odd corners. Meanwhile attempts to free up the cam clamps on the containers had developed into a construction project.

There was no end to their resourcefulness. There was even time to make Andy a new
bike rack.

Such a shame to close the gates on a sky like that.
Thanks all those who toiled and sweated.

Wednesday 11th June

How could I know when I arrived on the airfield the the grass, which seems to be growing at an inch a day, would cause us so much grief. I decided it would not be a good idea to risk flying the Vega with its low wings so the dozen or so people who turned up were somewhat limited for choice as the Ka8 was in dock for its ARC and I had sabotaged the newly restored JMX. So I got to working my way down the training list while the others shared the Puchacz. Rob and Chris K rigged the Cirrus and with a lot of harmony and understanding it worked out quite well. UNTIL...

We found we were missing two items - to wit: one Puchacz and one Ken Hansell

It turned out that Ken had gone off the lush Rivar pastures and was looking for somewhere to land which more befitted his discerning taste.

So it came to pass that Steve B, Paul P, Roland, me and Darren set about finding enough bits to make a Puchacz trailer and then set forth to Herridge near Collingbourne Kingston. It was at this point that I realised just how much grief the long grass was going to cause us. Had it been shorter Ken would have been flying the Vega - how much easier to retrieve.

On our arrival we found that Ken had parked the Puch in the middle of a hundred acre billiard table.

Ken had sought out one of the best kept lawns in Wiltshire, home to no less than our gracious Queen's ex racehorse trainer - the inimitable Richard Hannon. http://www.richardhannonracing.co.uk/

And so the Puch was derigged and trailered, we returned it to our humble hangar and joined Ken for a generous gift of fish and chips and ale and relaxed in the setting sun. Unfortunately by the time we were finished nobody was in a fit state to rig a glider, so regrettably that had to be left for the weekend.

Sunday 8th June - a day to remember?

With reasonable soaring conditions, 3 booked trial lessons, plenty of ab initios and 3 sets of instructor checks to get through and only 2 two seaters online Carol and I were kept rather busy.

Most of my time was spent with getting the instructor checks for Steve Ottner, Carol Pike and Ken Porter completed as time was beginning to run out which would have meant that we would have been 3 instructors down but with the help of other instructors we managed to get almost everyone flown.

Unfortunately due to an active CuNim nearby we had to curtail flying before everyone had flown which must have been quite frustrating for those affected. Quite rightly the winch driver was not too keen on sending a steel wire up to the offending cloud!

All in all we flew 47 launches and despite a lot of bung pulling on my part we managed to clock up over 20 hours of soaring. Notable flights were Jim Clarke with 3:39 in the Nimbus, Ken Reid with 3:05 in the Duo and Colin Baines with 1:43 in the LS3.

The soaring conditions were not always that good as can be testified by the number of visitors that landed at Rivar during the afternoon. Unfortunately one of these visitors dropped a wing during a re-light and ground looped his glider causing substantial damage to the tail, the pilot however was a little shaken but otherwise ok.


Phil



Thursday 5th

Good call on Colin's part to move wet Wednesday to thermic Thursday.  That said, the sky looked good but the thermals proved elusive with only a couple of folks managing around an hour and Justin B comfortably getting his 2 hour flight in the bag (comfortable as in - plenty of time in hand).  The Red Arrows passed between us and Newbury several times in the day kept us to the west side of the airfield.  With lots of drift on offer in a fair westerly breeze this limited our options to drift with a thermal.  We were reward with a puff of smoke from the Arrows (unfortunately, I missed it).
The rumour that one of the qualifications for being a CFI is to have eyes in the back of your head (and elsewhere) seemed to be confirmed when Colin received a text from our esteemed CFI enquiring who was flying the club's Vega over Burbage.
Near the end of the day a passing glider popped out his get-me-home turbo and fired it up low over Shalbourne.  Bob B said to me "I hope no one in the village thinks that's anything to do with us".  Shortly afterwards I had to head home and as I was about to pull onto the road when a Chelsea Tractor turned in to the opening to the field.  I stopped to advise the driver how to proceed safely to the launch point and discovered he had come to check that we hadn't started flying powered aircraft.  A kinda variation on a Neighbourhood Watch scheme?
Colin "honest guv, it just came off in my hand" Baines flying the Shalbourne simulator.  Note the realistic airbrake lever.

good bye spring, hello summer

The last day of spring was one of those days where it tried to be soarable but it just wasnt really, by which i mean it was and we did but climbs were weak and unreliable. Colin, Phil'n'Carol and Richard rigged and enjoyed some soaring as did the K13 and Vega to some extent.

The first day of summer was much better, it started off quite tricky locally with initial overdevelopment and lowish cloudbase but as morning turned to mid afternoon the conditions got good indeed (although one member was heard to comment that 5000ft cloudbase and climbs at 5kts weren't inspiring him). I flew to Bicester and back to hand over to Jim who did the same, gliding back 53km from north of Oxford.. Phil'n'Carol flew Bic, Ban, Birdlip and Chris flew most of that, missing out the yucky bit by Birdlip. Ken'n'Bill in the Duo flew Keevil, Didcot. The club fleet were kept busy and soaring. Nice day.

Congrats to Liz who won the regionals.