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

Sunday 27th at the club

It's days like this that one wishes we had the option of (occasionally) taking an aerotow or turning the field through 90 degrees.  With the easterly wind launch heights were modest leaving insufficient time to find the lift.  Only 1 person managed launch directly into a thermal and so was able to wander around at 4,000 to 5,000 around the countryside in the Vega.  We did see lots of gliders passing overhead at great heights - grrrrrr. 

The day started blue (with a NE wind) but the good stuff appeared from the south and the wind veered to the East.  Mid afternoon the blue crept in from the south, the wind also moved to the south and we changed ends.  With the dead sky came a couple of Lashamites unable to make it back home.  With those 2 pilots plus some refugees from Wyvern and a couple of unbooked TLs appearing the visitors outnumbered the club members.  Very pleased to welcome the Wyvern chaps who's help at keeping things running and putting the toys away was much appreciated.

I took a launch shortly before 18:00 and much to my surprise managed to deliver a full 30 minute TL in what looked like dead air by gently milking the almost imperceptible lift.

Many thanks to the few club members who turn out and kept us flying with a special thanks to Nigel and Trevor for their long stints on the winch and Jim C who delivered 13 instructional flights.

Saturday 26th


Report from Bob B:-


Today (Saturday 26th May) produced a howling South-Easterly making it unwise to risk cables falling to the west.

However, there was furious gardening at Rivar Hill - topping the new forest of hogweed in the middle of the field. Unfortunately this will need chemical attack as the roots will be impossible to remove, so it will be back in a few weeks. It was suggested that Jim should load up his Nimbus with agent orange and waterbomb the area.





We were pleased to greet our new full flying member 'Kes' to the club.

Kes


Thanks also to Jim who entertained us with a talk and discussion about circuit planning.


Sunday 27th May. What a day.


Cross country flying is ok, well it's better than ok, for me it's great, pushing oneself to your own personal limits and getting across country as efficiently as you can is fantastic but I have decided, strictly on a personal basis, to add a different dimension to my cross country escapades. I have therefore introduced cross country sign collecting.

The idea, and it has the seed which could become more popular as people realise how enjoyable it is, involves flying away from your launch point and taking a photo of the nearest signpost you can find.

Here is a beauty I collected on Sunday, isn't she lovely?!



I've collected quite a few the last year or so but I've been somewhat hesitant to publicly air my passion for signs. One of my greatest finds was this little gem.



My flight was great and (for me) no shame in my landout at Little Rissington airfield.

The guys there were very welcoming and helpful, and when I'd arranged a retrieve and turned back up at Little Rissington at 21:30 they turned out to open the gates.

(Earlier)
As I thermal'd above the airfield, joined by a couple of Ventus and LS8's  I sctratched away thinking that if I landed at least I'd have some company, but after a while, as well as being a bit lower I realised they were all popping their engines.

I've mixed feelings about engines but the overriding feeling is jealousy.

How happy I was to see them turbo'ng away from certain land out while I turned finals and landed on a very nice runway.

A little later a gent from Aston Down landed at Little Rissington, unfortunately without putting his wheel down and on the runway. Very unfortunate to see but it does make the biggest Morse code I've ever seen and looked like this -... ..- --. --. . .-.

Until I landed out I was having a great day, fantastic runs with great air, well that was until the air changed and it all went to custard.

Sutton Bank: At Last We Fly

OK, so strictly speaking, Wednesday was not our first flying day.  Sunday, Carol and Phil worked away at getting everyone site and/or aerotow checked.  Tuesday, a few flew but only the Janus (Carol & Phil) and the Nimbus (Jim) did more than simply descend; Paul took his first aerotow solo and Jon took his first aerotow for 20 years.  However, on Wednesday all who launched soared.  Gliders (between ourselves and the Stratford club there were quite a few) were positioned in readiness to go on-line to the south of the clubhouse and pilots hung around or drank tea in the clubhouse waiting to see if it really would “pop”.  Before that could happen we changed ends and all the gliders returned to where they had been overnight.  I say “changed ends” – we moved half way along the runway and pointed in the other direction.  Not much wind to speak of but what there was was on our back.  It did mean we were launching over the white horse and one suddenly had lots of height if a low cable break was encountered.
“Enough of the ground manoeuvres, what about the flying?” I hear you ask. Hm, maybe the less said about that the better. With cloudbase between 1,800’ and 2,000’ and the most reliable area of lift above the bank there were a lot of gliders trying to cram into the 1,400 to 1,800 band in a limited area – not many of them Flarmed and the visually picking out gliders wasn’t that easy. Easy enough to stay airborne, most folks came back when neck muscle strain got to them. James W and Richard D exercised Sutton Bank’s Astir and Discus (respectively).


With the warm, long evening alfresco dining was the order of the day. We gathered in Thirsk’s market square where fish & chips and Chinese takeaways were on offer which were then taken to a select spot on the banks of the river. James W, having misprogrammed the turning point, ate his takeaway further upstream but on the homerun (for the pub) we meet back up with him.


Sutton bank Exped 3

I spoke to Phil this morning who said they're all having a great time. The weather is a mixed bag but they're hoping for an improvment which looks supported by the Met.

Obvoiulsy Paul Prentice is missing the creature comforts of home but seems to be muddling through. Perhaps he's inspired to do some ridge runnning, maybe he dropped his lucky 50p, either way I doubt that the young lady noticed Paul the Ninja creep up behind her!

Sutton Bank Exped 2

from http://www.ygc.co.uk/wordpress/


Sarurday 19th.  Rain in the morning and low cloud for the rest of the day kept the gliders in the hangars, while the cool and moderate N’ly flow kept the pilots in the clubhouse, although a couple chose to fly in sunnier skies on the simulator.  The club welcomed pilots and gliders from both the Shalbourne and Stratford GCs with the hope of better conditions for the  new week starting on Sunday.

Sunday 20th.  The moderate N’ly flow continued, but the day was dry and the cloud, although low, provided sufficient gaps to allow flying to commence at 1030 hrs and continue until 1730 hrs, during which time around 30 ATs were flown.   The conditions provided some  navigation challenges,  but no one got lost.  The visiting pilots from Shalbourne and Stratford took the opportunity to get airborne with 16 launches in their own gliders, Messrs Harris and Elison putting up the longest 2 seater flight of the day as conditions improved a little in the afternoon, 27 minutes in their Puchacz, just beating the 26 minutes of Messrs Pike and Greenwood in the Janus.  No YGC single seaters were flown, the 2 K21s and the DG1000 providing flights  for the rest of those wanting to fly, including Tony Dury who made use of his Learn to Fly package to have 4 flights with John Marsh in the K21, the longest being 21 minutes.   2 pilots managed to find sufficient lift to exceed an hour in the air, Barry Kerby having 1:27 in his LS8 via a series of short cloud climbs, the cloud base not increasing much over the day.  The last flight of the day saw Bob  Calvert make use of a downwind convergence to soar for 1:07 in his Discus.

Sunday 20th May


ERIV 201145Z 010 10KT 9999 OVC007 10/08 Q1009 

That's METAR for rubbish!

Sutton Bank Exped

Phil has asked me to add this to the blog. Apparently it was to sort out a small problem with the Puchacz, it was the smallest hammer in Rod's toolbox.

Sounds like they're having fun at Sutton Bank. I went to work again today.........

Saturday 19th

'Vaguely Soarable' is how Met God David Masson forecast the day, and indeed vaguely soarable is what it turned out to be. We did our first vague soaring on the first flight when the gloop cleared enough to fly at around 11am. We flew through the rest of the day and it was soarable for most of that time, with a mix of soaring flights, cable breaks, checks and investigation of glider behaviour near the stall. Lovely to see Mark Patterson firmly back and not far off resoloing; lovely also to see John Day back and determined to get himself back to solo. Meanwhile we flew two trial lessons - I hope they'll both be back - and those in training/improvement got down to some hard work on training and improving. The only thing missing was the rest of you - we had only enough people to operate one glider at a time for most of the day. Don't waste the facility you've paid for - get out and get flying! And the DI apologises for having to slope off a little early - even I was fooled by the weather into thinking we'd be packed up by 5.15 when we did the last flight!

Sunday 13th (the other day)

So, everyone made a bee-line for Saturday.  Some of us knew our glider would be occupied and went flying on the other day of the weekend (and not all that many of us).  Well why would anyone pick Sunday when the Lasham weather guru said "nothing spectacular - rather lingering cumulus base 3000-3500ft" with 2 kt thermals?  Well, the friend of Selvam's who I took for a TL mid-afternoon seemed to think that joining a thermal shortly after launching that took us to 4,800 with the vario bouncing between 8 and 10 was spectacular - but then it's easy to impress folks taking a TL isn't it.  In this case he'd been to L many years ago and didn't quite make solo so he did have some experience to compare with.
OK I will admit earlier on it wasn't so easy all day and not everyone managed to get away and some took more than 1 attempt.  Even so 9 of the (modest) 19 launches had a decent length flight (between 1 and 3 hours).  I don't know where folks got to other than Pete (180k but then his Nimbus was back in its trailer by the time the best conditions arrived) - oh, and me.  Between Colin and myself EEFy clocked up over 5 hours.

PS I'm not trying to take a pop at the Lasham forecasts - they are very good and I do appreciate being able to see them.  It just goes to show that the weather does what it wants to do.

Saturday 12th May 300km later


After waiting for some decent weather we were finally rewarded with light northerlies on Saturday. RASP looked good; the met gave a good report so Phil and I decided to pop around a 300km flight, each in our single seat gliders. We were (if time allowed) going to shove on an extra task if we could but the essence of the task was Birdlip, Rushden and back to Rivar.

We decided on as early a start as possible, that way we’d have the opportunity to add a further task on if we wanted.

Having got to the field and the dawn of crack we found James Hunneyman had beaten us to it!

We fettled, snapped wings on and generally got everything set and were ready to launch early.

A little later, having sent off the K13 we decided it was worth launching and took to the sky.

Leaving Rivar at around 2500 feet we tiptoed towards Gloucester each taking it in turns to both lead and follow. I was constantly frustrated with being out climbed in the thermals by the LS3 but it was pointed out a little later that both the glider climbs well and Phil scratches like a dog with Psoriasis.

The sky towards Birdlip cycled and not in a way you’d like, turning to a scraggy horribly and grey mass. I got low and ended up scratching for the little lift there was next to Kemble. Hearing people on the radio sounding grateful for a half knot climb I realized I wasn’t the only one low and about to land. At 830 feet above the ground I finally latched onto a weak but stable climb, which took me both back up into the air but more worryingly across a forest of trees. It’s strange how you focus when so close to a mixed deciduous forest with a small escape field at either end. Up I went with the thermal eventually building into something much better and having called to Phil to carry on track.

I sulked a little for letting myself get low and headed towards Birdlip some 17km ahead. Rounding the TP I refocused and headed onwards to Rushden and with a good pace started chomping away the km’s.  After a while a familiar voice came over the radio asking how I was doing. I told Phil I had 85km to run to Rushden. To my amazement Phil said he had 110km to run! I wondered where he’d been and how on gods green earth had he sneaked behind me at Birdlip but it transpires he also got low getting the TP, of which the two Kens in the Duo Discus turned back from, Phil had  lost a lot of time there.

I do like a little schadenfruede especially when I later learned that Phil was watching me above the forest and flew away as he didn’t want his day (and 300km) spoilt by watching me land in the trees.

The day and the air got better and better and once we’d turned Rushden it was a relatively smooth run back for the last 125km, well that was until Phil got to Didcot and thermalled around the chimneys but even so managed a very respectable final glide of 40km at 62 knots and the best climb at Didcot averaging 5.5 knots with the vario hitting over 10 knots in places.

What a cracking day. [edit: by pete: shame you dont know which one - changed sunday in your title to saturday muppet!]

Alchemy, Pure Alchemy (12May)

 CFI Phil congratulates Nigel on his 5hours and his Silver completed



Our newest silver pilot Nigel congratulates Phil on his Gold Distance flight. 


Also congrats to Jon for his 2hour xc endorsement leg.

A busy day of soaring - nuff said.

(originally posted by Pete.  Re-ordered/posted by Steve)

Sunday 6th May

Arrived at the club to find Janus, LS7 and LS3 rigged under a very grey sky - what did they know that I didn't?  The Janus was first out of the slipps and when it came back to earth after 7 minutes I concluded that it wasn't really worth rigging.  Hm, got that wrong - next attempt it returned after an hour and half, via Swindon.  Guess they would have stayed airborne if Phil and Carol hadn't pressing matters to attend to.  Connecting to lift wasn't a foregone conclusion with only 11 of the 25 launches flying for more than half an hour.  Cloudbase got to 4,000' and longest flight was 1:52.

The second man in space...* (5th May)

Bob said we'd be packed up by 1.30. We all agreed...

At 5 we were looking up at Steve B in the K13 diminished by height to a mere speck.

In between we all went soaring, ok so cloudbase wasn't great for most the day but there were good climbs out there. I think Bob spinned (span/spun just doesn't sound right) every foot he gained back down again. Darren's daughter showed me how to soar on her first flight, just as well as i couldn't manage it today and everyone else had at least a half hour flight.

*on this day in 1961 Mercury-Redstone 3 carried Alan Shepard in to space.
His flight lasted 15mins, well down the leader-board of today's flight times.