Wednesday 24th

Colin B had sent out an email telling folks not to be put off by the rain in the morning as soaring would follow - and soaring there was (well, unless you were the HAX boys taking a K13 for a series of circuits).  Paul B set the days time to beat on the 4th launch of the day with 1:08 in the K8.  That was topped by Jonty H with 1:10 (again in the K8).  Jonty was looking to get the spot landing entry on his post solo card signed off by landing in line with the launch point.  The assembled gentlemen enjoying the sunshine in the lee of the caravan debated as to whether his landing back at the empty launch point qualified as a spot landing as he must have been all of half a meter short - these boys can be hard to impress.

Looking for gliders at an empty launch point

Bill C took the honours for longest flight in the Vega with 54 minutes.  Longest K13 flight was Rowland with 44 minutes, gaining a bronze leg on his 5th (or there abouts) solo flight.  King of the castle was claimed by Paul Mc who topped out at 3,400' in the Vega.
Footnote: I suppose it's not really fair to pick out the HAX boys as you had to be a bit lucky with the timing of your launch.  Only 8 of the 23 launches managed more than 20 minutes.  I also have to appologise to Jonty H as I stripped him of his longest flight honours.  I only took the K8 as it seemed rude to leave it sitting when there was spare cable sitting next to it.  Mind, it took 900' of the 2,000' launch to find my first (weak) climb.

Sunday 21st

What a difference a change of air overnight makes.  Saturday those who turned played the "is that a pylon I can see" game through the murk.  Sunday, great vis and decent wind from the north with just a touch of east boding well for the ridge.  Unfortunately (?) the ridge lift got mucked up by the thermals.  Lots of members appeared needing the attention of an instructor - without Richard D's help I would never have got through the list.  Lots of trial lessons too, which kept Peter E busy.  The entire club fleet had a good airing.
Stewart R from The Park turned up with his Ventus being drawn by the favourable forecast.  After 3 hours he returned with tales of a couple of low scrapes on his way back from Oxford.  Phil M and Carol P disappeared in their Janus for a couple of hours but I didn't hear where they got to.  Bill C had a decent flight in his K6 but the private Puchacz seemed to have the knack of launching into the sink between the thermals.
Almost 19 hours flown off 45 launches and 29 people flew.  A busy and excellent day.  Thanks to all who helped out (special thanks to Chris K who did most of the winching despite felling ropey and did training of new winch drivers).

Radio Telephony Course

Just in case the Blog gets to places that Yahoo Groups does not reach. The first session of the FRTO Licence course starts on Wednesday at 18:30 in the club house.

Whether wanting to qualify as a certified radio operator,

qualified but need a refresher,

or just interested in how to use the field radio correctly,

 this course is for you!

All for only a fiver (to cover costs - any surplus to club funds). Don't worry if you can't make the start time, just turn up asap.

Wednesday 17th

Third Wednesday in a row where we've been "blessed" with an easterly crosswind.  Only difference this time was the touch of northerly and a lot more of it. The challenge of the day (other than dealing with a lively cross wind) was to get into a double digit flight time.  Sitting in the back seat with Jonty H flying, he declared he would do a gentle turn onto his high key.  The vario chirped and Jonty got stuck in.  Wrestling broken lift and drift he eventually got to 1,200' at which point the "hot spot" we kept returning to went cold (a chilly 4 down).  I did comment that if that was a "gentle" turn I would appreciate plenty of warning for a steep turn.  Nobody else came close to Jonty's 23 minutes but there were another 5 (of the 26) that achieved double digits.
Interestingly (?) we did one more launch and 2 more minutes than Sunday and 15 people flew on both days.

Sunday 14th

Rob S had organised a photography group to fly alongside normal club operations and the following note was received from the group's organiser Paul (link to the photos will be added once received).

I just wanted to say a big thank you to you and everybody else who helped make last weekend’s gliding and photography day one of the best events we have had this year. Everybody really loved the flying, despite some initial apprehensions, and we were made so welcome that ii felt like were out with old friends. So please pass my thanks to everybody from the club who helped look after us.
I am trying to get a selection of photos and videos together from the day, and will try an set up an album somewhere (probably on facebook) for you to access. I will send you details when this is done.
Once again, many thanks to all at the gliding club from all of us in the photography club.

Wednesday 10th

Another Wednesday, another day with a 90 degree cross wind from the east.  This time Colin had promised soaring and soaring we got.  What we didn't get was great vis.  It was one of those days when the higher you climbed the smaller area you could see.
Apparently the day started with a bit of a double act preparing the winch.  It was decided to replace two joins close to each other with just a single join.  Joins replaced and it was found that the drums had been left engage so there was lots of loose cable on the other drum.  In sorting that cable fell off the other drum and the quickest way to sort the tangle was to cut out the new join (I was asked to recount that tale by one of the participants).
Flying did get started shortly before midday and the first 8 flights all enjoyed some soaring (between 26 minutes and 1:56).  Next 7 launches were just circuits and after that most were soaring flights.  After having one of the 7 circuits, off my second launch I made straight for a likely looking cloud over Ham.  The reading on the averager just kept getting better and from 2,000' to 4,000' (cloud base) it never went below 6 and peaked at 7.  After that the averager never got much above 2 up.
Longest flight honours went to Paul McG with 2:04 in the Vega.  With 35 launches we were somewhat behind Sunday's exceptional number of launches but the flying time was more than double that of Sunday's.  If you exclude the longest flight on each day then Wednesday's flying time was 3 time that of Sunday's.
It was also a day for a small gathering of folks who were members many moons ago.  Tony P rejoined after a lapse of about 25 years.  Adam C visited after a similar period away.  He was recently in Poland at the World championships as New Zealand's team captain and now taking time to visit old friends in the UK.  Adam and Colin had fun when Adam went as ballast in the Puchacz when Colin decided that the quickest way to get the Pauchacz to the back of the grid (as nobody was waiting to fly it at that time) was to launch and throw it about.  Adam got his own back in a K13 when he headed for the only cloud on offer competition pilot style.  The other person with a long gap between being a member was Jonty who flew at the club before Tony or Adam's time - but that was done sitting on his father's lap.

Adam C back "home" at Rivar Hill

Sunday 7th September 2014

Not what you would call a great soaring day but certainly flyable and very well attended. I know I make a lot of noise about the lack of enthusiasm some times but on Sunday there couldn't easily have had more enthusiasm from more members. The parking area on the field looked like the M25 on a bad day and the flying list was as long as I have seen it for a long time. There were several pre-booked TLs and more turned up on spec. No one left without  a flight, Nigel did a sterling job and I managed to fit in one extra for someone who was getting ready to leave due to a longish wait. Stephen O helped with the flying list and check flights and everyone flew although there wasn't much soaring (unless you count Colin in the LS3 at 3 hours plus). Final tally was 50 launches and the Plough was well and truly open by the time we had packed up. Stephen had a little look at the stats and apparently we manage 50+ launches on one day each year, however, if this level of enthusiasm can be maintained we could manage it again this year. Thanks to all who stayed and worked so hard to keep the field running smoothly and well done Selvam for getting cleared for solo winching.

Special blog header

for one day only to commemorate all Colin's and others hard work on manufacturing the pitched trailer cover and ensuring we have a serviceable 2 seater trailer now and for the future.

Wednesday 3rd

A slow start, even for a Wednesday, yielded some extended flights for those patient enough to wait for the morning mist to clear. Alternate patches of sunshine and overcast limited soaring time and out of three gliders that were rigged two managed and hour or so. The exception was EEF which steadfastly deigned not to soar in such poor conditions, sulking around the circuit instead. Nonetheless we managed to fill two log sheets and do some useful stuff, most useful of which was Rowland going solo, well done! (Especially for providing a good excuse for an evening tipple.)

Many thanks to Peter E and Stephen for helping out with TLs and other stuff. It would have been difficult to manage otherwise.

And by the way:

"The ASW 15 had just entered the full climb of a winch launch when its pilot saw the helicopter approaching. The Board highly commended him for his lookout; presence of mind and subsequent actions."

Thus recorded the UK Airprox Board on the prompt action taken by Steve Barber in avoiding a collision with an overflying helicopter.

Saturday 30th

Another day with a very modest turnout.  The stiff 90 degree cross-wind and the forecast of a better day on Sunday probably explained why only 7 folks flew on Saturday but 20 flew on Sunday.  Number of launches (and number of folks flying) was the same as Wednesday but this time cloud base was 3,700'.  The cross wind meant modest launch height and therefore there wasn't much time to find a reasonable climb (i.e. climb rate>drift rate).  Rowland very kindly took most of the short flights and the rest of us had some reasonable soaring.  I claimed longest flight time with 56 minutes - which included a little help from the western ridge, the first time I have ever found anything there.

Wednesday 27th

Not exactly a promising day with complete cloud cover and a south-easterly.  Not many folks in attendance with some of the regulars at Sutton Bank and of those there Colin B was getting the club trailer into a usable state and the HAX boys were busy fettling.  We threw a K13 into the air for a weather check and I was able to report cloud base at 1,600' - which just happened the be launch height.  After a couple of hours the cloud base got lower and it was time to put the toys away - besides there's a limit to how many 5 or 6 minute flights one wants to take.  A modest 11 launches.

Sunday 31st August

Good soaring conditions along with a light WNW wind gave us plenty of extended flights and produced many in excess of an hour.

Chris B in his LS7 set off to the west getting as far as Westbury Chimney before the approaching sea breeze stopped him from venturing any further. Unfortunately Chris managed to get back which was a shame as I was looking forward to making use of my fully charged video camera so that I could take revenge for him filming Carol and I's land out at Urchfont the previous weekend :-(

Despite a flight time of 3:08 this was not the longest flight of the day as Trevor, flying his Jantar, clocked up a very respectable 3:38 on his flight to Swindon........almost landing out I hear.

Cirrus pilots Rob Jarvis and Chris Keating flew HAX for 2:15 and 1:24 respectively whilst Paul Prentice, Steve Gaze and James Walters had over the hour each in the K8 and Vega.

Uncharacteristically some of the shortest flights of the day were flown by Liz but as I was putting her through her 5 yearly instructor checks and I was suffering from a bout of yellow bungitis I suppose Liz could be forgiven :-) Glad to say that after the customary exercises a signature in her logbook was duly applied. I would like to point out that the offer of an XC flight in the Duo Turbo next weekend did not affect the outcome at all!

Between the first flight at 10:47 (only cut short when the winch started moving towards the launching Puchacz) and the last at 18:19 we clocked up an quite reasonable 38 launches totalling about 21 hours 45 minutes.

All in all a very enjoyable day.