Monday 6 May
Bank Holiday Monday has a Festive feel to it and the weather plays along magnificently. It's also clearly a day for couples. Paul and Helen Juggins get the day started with Aerotows while Emily and Adam Highmore-Talbot share a day course and Russell and Dee take the K21 for a spin. Bob King brings his family for a splendid picnic and it just so happens (purely coincidentally) that the Highmore-Talbots know Bob's Daughter Ellie. Ellie has flown before and flies again. Bob shows off in front of his family and goes soaring for an hour and a half to complete the second soaring flight for his cross-country endorsement. (For goodness sake do your bronze exams now Bob.) Both Adam and Emily make spectacular progress through the day. Dave Le Maistre and Paul Duffy alternate taking the Green HUSsey for a series of excursions and Brian Hucker, Dave Price and Terry Turner take turns in various club gliders. Lucy flies her little red devil twice. The first flight lasts 21 minutes and the second one three hours and five minutes. Now if she had not bothered to land between these two flights she would have been up for a total of four hours and fifty six minutes, which was coincidentally exactly as long as Harry Abraham was up in one single flight. I will not repeat Harry's words when he discovered he was four minutes short of a five hour flight (we may have younger readers) but the length of his flight is remarkable, irrespective, considering that he only launched at 13h54 and eked every last second out of the day to land only three minutes and 50 seconds short at 18h48. (No photo of Harry is included in case readers can lip read.)
Tuesday 7 May
As Mary pointed out (see below) the weather gods continued to smile on us. If Richard Allen starred on the day with a 70 minute cross-country endorsement flight there were plenty of stellar performers in the supporting cast. Suzie Sykes-Waller endures launch-failure practice with patience and determination while Gail does what she always does (disappears for ages), as does Jane, Eric and Russell. Mary and I go cross country soaring (well, Mary does the soaring and I go along to keep her company, pointing out the old salt road and iron age hill forts) and Clive eventually prises the K6 from Eric's eager grasp to have a late afternoon bimble about. Paul Barnes and Gail Jackson fly off for a while and Lech has a go. The day ends with Shaun Badby (first flight in years and years) and myself finding terrific late afternoon lift and going on a little tour of the neighbourhood. Shaun's smile at the end of the day would need a hammer and chisel to remove. Welcome back to a life with your head in the clouds mate!
Wednesday 8 May
The theme of the week set, Returnees and Coincidences, the day had a certain inevitability about it so the deteriorating weather doesn't deter us. First up was Howard Atherton, on a day course, who learned to fly 30 years ago, and then flew occasionally in California (aerotow only out in the desert). After a 10 year lay-off he makes good progress. Anya phones me from the office to say she has two people who have walked in off the street who were wondering if they could do a trial lesson. Answer: Of Course! Now, these two gentlemen, Brian Layt-Williams and Robin Smitten are two glider pilots who have not flown for 4 and 29 years respectively, so on the airfield on the same day we coincidentally have forty three years of collective hiatus from flying and everyone returning on the same day. It further transpires that Howard is a Cinematographer (having worked on a number of Hollywood blockbusters) and Robin (coincidentally) is the Projectionist at the cinema and theatre in Chipping Norton and has shown those movies regularly over the years. Lech also returns (well, ok, from yesterday) and in addition to flying a few times provides invaluable help at the launch point. Everybody makes good progress. At the end of the day Robin and I are astonished to find lift and we go soaring under a line of cloud that just seems to go on for ever. We thermal away and fly in smooth and increasing lift along the front of a line of cloud. We spin back into circuit to give Lech the last flight of the day. The lesson? Never underestimate the ability of a poor weather day to deliver a longer flight.
and returnees Howard, Robin and Brian reminisce.
Thursday 9 May
Today it is windy and rainy. We do the paperwork on a few silver badge claims. Remember when you want to make a badge flight to make sure that an Official Observer sees the logger go into the glider and leave and arrive back with you in place. Remember to ask for advice before you launch on what is needed to get your badge claim recognised. More information and the badge claim forms are available here http://www.gliding.co.uk/bgainfo/onlineforms.htm on the BGA website.
Friday 10 May
I'm off. Bruno's BACK
NB. Still written by a HUMAN. See if you can spot the deliberate mistake/omission/exception. Answers on beer mats please.