Another midweek achievement - Friday 26th July

Angus Preston went solo on Friday after 30 flights, and this included 6 cable breaks!! Awesome and excellent solos.

Bruno

The 'Away Team' in Action ....

Well, sort of! Some 'action' shots of the SGC Long Mynd task week expedition crew...

 

Clive achieved a long ambition to fly a full size glider from the Mynd, having flown models from there before. Lucy got cleared to fly solo, then she and Eric took part in the task week in 373/CCD. 

Lucy's folks join the rest of the ground crew in the shade, while Lucy takes shelter at the launchpoint

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Colin popped up to join the team for a BBQ one evening. Eric got best score of the week gaining a third place on the Friday. He reports that Jackie & Kev have improved their already impressive retrieve crew turnaround to Olympian standards!Here is another ace field:

I'm glad they had a great trip but it's good to have them back!

Sunday 21st July

Another Sunday, another duty! After a week of sweltering conditions and good soaring (yes, I know, highly unusual for the UK) the weekend was forecast to be a bit of a disappointment. However club members have been enjoying themselves midweek and I think there are a few achievements to be reported, particularly in the case of our visitor from Greece.

In the fortnight since I was last here Stephanos has gone solo, finished his bronze, completed the cross country endorsement, and done silver height and silver duration.....oh, and he's learnt to drive the winch  - good to see that there's been no time wasted then! He's managed to extend his stay for a few days so hopefully the weather will permit a 50km flight this week so that he can go home with the full set of paperwork. 

Bush telegraph also suggests that Lech might have done silver height during the week, and I'm sure there must have been some other interesting flights too. Alan L and Graham P were over at Bidford flying in the Regionals last week (7 xc days in a row...), while Eric, Lucy, Jackie & Kev were at a task week at the Long Mynd with 373.

So on Sunday we were quiet and very relaxed at getting started due to the low cloud base but eventually we did get the kit out and ambled up to the farm end of the grass strip. Jane & Gail were our BI's for the day and they flew with the trial lessons, then Stephanos did some solo aerotow practice once the clouds had gone up. There was not a lot in the way of soaring, but Liz, Charles S, Jon L, Tess, Rowan all had a trip in CCC. Jon L won the longest flight of the day in the club kit but said it was tricky as the thermals were 'spanish'! Clive also took Liz flying in the Falke.   

We were also visited by the Kidd family - Chris & Paulina and their two daughters Alicia & Eloise - who were SGC members before moving back to New Zealand 10 years ago. (Chris used to have a share in 373 together with me & John, as part of a 2 glider, 4 people syndicate).  Some of you may remember the girls toddling around, now they're 11 & 13...

Chris went gliding for the first time in 10 years with Gary in the DG (longest flight of the day), and was very surprised at all of the changes the club has undergone. As well as a few dear friends we've also lost the cows, the crop triangle and various barbed wire fences since Chris last flew here. 

During the afternoon the various wanderers began to return - Jackie & Kev to help with the winch; Alan L flying back in from Bidford in JYR; CFI Phil bringing the tug back from Bidford; the first of our friends from Bowland arriving to spend some time with us over the next couple of weeks. We had a pleasant day though no epic feats to report. Thanks to everyone who helped out at the launchpoint, especially those who didn't fly.

And now it's Tuesday and I hope you're all enjoying some good gliding whilst I'm at work - I look forward to hearing about it soon.

Sunday 7th July

Another sunny day and another busy day for Shenington.

Graham P was authorising, with Gavin on the ground to help, and John Dono back for another bout of instructing with Tim H and Stefanos. At lunchtime we had a visit from a group of military vehicle enthusiasts on one of their group get-togethers - thanks to Jane, Eric, Carol and Liz for sorting out food and feeding them all lunch.

Rowan, John R, Graham P and Tess went soaring in their gliders. The team on the ground managed to fit in some 'extra' trial lessons who were enthused by watching their friends fly, and once again the aircraft were kept in the air until late. Thanks to Gail, Jane & John for flying the visitors and ensuring that they enjoyed their trips. Alistair F completed his xc endorsement soaring flights with a 2 hour flight in Jaffa, and Gavin went soaring in the loaned Astir. Gary B, volunteer tuggie for the day also went flying in Jaffa having been out in his Grob the day before.

There were some great climbs out there, but the visibility was poor higher up, especially coming back from the East into sun. Had a look at Silverstone this w/e en route, now that the grand prix notam is lifted:

 

 

Here is the airfield at around 5pm taken from over Upton House.....still soarable off the winch.

We had a very enjoyable weekend at the club. I hope the mid-weekers are having some good flying this week as well.

Saturday 6th July

Crumbs - two decent weekends in a row! Whatever has happened to the British weather?

Saturday started warm and sunny, and lots of members headed out to the airfield in spite of the BBC forecast saying it would be blue and hot. Late morning, Eric set off in Cosy Pajamas on a 300km attempt to Bury St Edmunds out and return -an ambitious but well thought out task. Alan L, Dave Smith & Russell,  Graham P in 60 & John W in H20 also declared cross country tasks and disappeared offsite.

John Dono was in charge, with Clive & Paul Fletcher helping out with our trial lesson visitors. John did currency and AFR checks with Tez and Roger Tyrell, and did ab initio training with Stefanos (visiting from Greece), Mike M (recent temp member) and Joe Bowler - the latest in the line of Bowler pilots. Most of the xc pilots returned throughout the afternoon reporting that conditions were /blue in places, and that vis wasn't great, task lengths varying up to 280km. John R went for a late instrument testing flight in EPU. Brent & Harry put the loaded Astir through its paces while Dave Price completed his xc endorsement soaring flights. Most of the trial lessons had soaring flights too so everyone got to fly and the four club gliders out were kept busy.

 

The day got steadily hotter and it is to the credit of all three instructors that they were still standing at 18:30pm when we packed in the day due to general exhaustion at the launchpoint. Here we are sheltering from the sun towards the end (note no gliders - all in the air):

Then just as we were about to pack up the launchpoint (final aerotow), a glider was seen landing in a field in the distance, over by Upton House. Rowan checked it out via the tug on his way back to the airfield and confirmed that it was Eric, as yet unaccounted for. A team went to collect Eric while we all pondered the distance to Bury St Edmunds and whether this would be a close miss, given that BSE O/R is only 302.6km and Eric was at least 1km away from site!!! (You don't need to get back to claim a 300km gold distance, though it doesn't count as a diamond goal)

Eric elected to leave the loggers till the next day, and concentrate on the retrieve and feeding the crew that evening. Here are a couple of shots of the field that Stephanie took :

 

And here is a shot I took from the air the following day - it's the field to the left of the lake:

On Sunday morning we were thrilled to find that the distance of the task on Saturday was 300.8km!
So on Saturday we had the longest task by the lowest performance glider going xc, and a well deserved Gold Distance for Eric in CPJ! What a result! Well done Eric.

 

End of the Regionals - 30th June

Well, here we were at the end of the week - all gridded up and no place to go. Or perhaps I should say instead no easy way to stay up in the air.......

Russell was flying JYR as official sniffer but after an hour or two of trying to find better than 0.5-1k thermals, he ran out of fuel and had to concede defeat. Although it looked quite nice, the cloudbase (mostly under 2000ft), 22knot wind and poor thermals meant that the day was eventually scrubbed. 

So we had an early prize-giving and our guests have now departed.The year's competition was won by Matt & Andy Davis with two previous winners Bill Inglis and Dave Findon in second and third place respectively. 

We had a great week with four days flying (I know, more would have been nice) and lots of social events such as a beer tasting, quiz, gliding talk, barn dance and brass band concert. Many thanks to the competition committee and the many club members who helped out for making it such a good week. Thanks also to the competitors for smiling through the bad weather (Liz's cakes helped) and generally being good sports. I hope we'll see most of you again next year.....

Damien took some fantastic pictures over the week. You can see them at the following link:

Shenington Regionals 2013 - Damien's site