Sunday 17th July

I know that last Thursday was great, but many of us were actually at work then!! It was with relief that the forecast for Sunday promised a decent day. We arrived late morning to find Gavin and his team of Mary's lodgers (is anyone allowed to lodge with Mary and not fly??) already pinging people off the winch. George had his mosquito out, Alistair had the K6e ready, and Paul D had decided to get the new Skylark BNN in the air. We Paul & Andy L helped rig BNN - very relaxed as just the lovely light wingtips to add - then off she went to the launch point.

I was lucky to get into the K8 just as the day opened up....a fantastic winch launch (thanks Dave) up to 1500ft then into a strong thermal and in no time I was looking down at the launch point, which was rapidly emptying of gliders. It was quite windy aloft, and the mosquito and Skylark had already disappeared up wind along a fantastic cloud street that gave lift almost continuously for about an hour. The Duo came out too and quickly disappeared. Every so often I had to soar the upwind side of the cloud to stay out of the wispies as the cloud base was only about 3000ft. Paul in BNN saw lots of gliders coming out low from Bidford over Shipston, I spotted a couple very low by Kineton but then they disappeared. Poor guys at Bidford have been running a Regionals during the latest bout of appalling weather and this was their last day - thank goodness they managed to get another task out of it, even though not the easiest day given the wave influence and low cloud base. Not many places to land yet either....

I took the glider back and swopped winch slots with Dave P. Whilst there we had quite a few landbacks, as we suddenly seemed to get stuck in a wave slot with a big blue hole. We had quite a few landouts from Bidford (including Alan & Trish!) - Gary & Dave G were kept busy towing them home. Gavin was kept busy with students such as Dee and doing checks with Leslie, Alex & Patrick. Gail took some visitors flying, and Clive flew the tug with a friend in the early evening. Graham Paul arrived back from the Bidford Regionals by air, having made it round the task in fairly difficult conditions.

Happy pilots about to launch!! Just look at that sky. BNN is a very elegant glider, perfectly painted for a British summer day.

We finished late, but had a lovely day. Thanks to all who helped out.

Adhoc Notes!

As of Tuesday 12th, Tim reports that the Falke is out of action for a few days for its Annual & ARC. There are competitions on at both Bidford and Bicester this week though, like us, they're struggling with the poor weather. Graham W, our met man from Bidford, reports that the weather for Thursday is looking decent at the moment so watch out for the 'local' updates on these 2 sites if you're considering flying those days.

Mary has published her third book, which is a collection of many of her old articles for S&G together with some new ones. There are some very amusing stories, and Shenington (together with many of our pilots) gets plenty of mentions. There are also quite a few photos of local characters!! Don't forget to buy your copy.....(resistance is futile, and anyway, how many gliding books are there around that mention our site & friends??).

If you want to see more of the Damien's photos from the comp, have a look at the following link:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/tupperware_pilot/albums/72157669198111960/page1 

 

 

Wednesday 6th July

June has been a disappointment for soaring, so I wanted to get into the air in the first half-decent day for weeks. I grabbed the K8 for what turned out to be the best part of the day, staying up for a couple of hours. There were strong thermals up to 3800ft, before high cover came in and everything went flat.

Tim D, Alan C and George all had their gliders out for an airing. Paul B, Robin, Gail, Susi, Martin J and Richard Allen shared the club gliders, and Abenezer went with Bruno in the Falke for a navigation exercise. Bruno was also busy giving french student Caroline lots of launch failure practice. We all know what that phase of training heralds: Bruno sent her solo the following day. 

With some air experience flights for visitors we achieved 30 launches in the day.

Dave Price

Day 9 of the Regionals - Sunday 3rd July

Last day, and a promising forecast so, after a late and rowdy party, we had an early briefing, an early grid, and an early launch!! Paul set a large DHT task - Edgehill, Manton, Chipping Norton, Great Witley (one for you Rog) then Banbury West for home. We got them launched early, and at last sat down in the sun for an hour with tea & cake before starting all those end of comp tasks.

The sky looked fantastic, sadly it wasn't quite as great out at the first turnpoint, and we had a few landouts at this point. Club members were a great help in going to collect people from fields, though a couple of people had aerotows back. That first leg slowed everyone down, so we didn't get people back till after 3pm, giving us all time for lunch and (more) cake. But there's more to do on the last day, from packing up tents and kit...to stowing cones, arranging prize giving, etc.

 

I was kept busy sorting out the scores for the final day so that we could have prize giving at 6pm and give people time to travel home. The rest of the team packed up around me, and the competitors slowly derigged gliders, tents and caravans. At 6pm we had the final prizegiving - there were prizes for the daily photo competition, Maureen got a prize for the best costume at the end of session party, and final scores for the day. Once again Tim Fletcher won the day, followed by Alex O'Keefe and Robert Hanks. The final scores overall gave Pete Smith the third place, Robert Hanks second place, and Tim Fletcher (for the second year!) came first! Congratulations to all.

Following the prize giving we had a final treat. Our friends in red were transiting home again, close to Edgehill, and they had agreed to give us another flypast. So at approx. 6:15pm, Shenington Regionals 2016 closed in style with a formation flypast by the Red Arrows!!!!

After that most of the trailers hitched up and off they all went - it looked rather sad once they'd gone. We packed up Control/hangar, etc for a couple of hours, then had a chinese takeaway together with a few remaining competitors in the restaurant. Very sad to go home after a fantastic week at the club - even without flying I really enjoyed the event. A big thanks must go to all of the club members who worked so hard to make the week a success - I think our visitors really appreciated it. 

Day 8 - Guess the club member

Shenington Club members (and friends) as you've never seen them before....

 

Day 8 of the Regionals - Saturday 2nd July

Today looked sunnier, but it was also not to be. Our morning briefing was enlivened by a genuine 1970s picket, organised by some of our competitors in order to get into the 70s swing ready for the evening....terrific demands, which sadly we weren't able to meet!!

After we scrubbed the day a few of our competitors decided to channel Blue Peter, and they made proper paper models of gliders and planes which you will now seen hung from the ceiling in the briefing room! Kept them out of trouble for a bit. Other folks started to assemble their outfits for the evening - slightly surprising what people are prepared to wear!!

Mary's granddaughter Michaela and her friends cooked us a fantastic Chilli dinner, with a fresh strawberry pudding. As the costumes began to appear, the full horror of the 1970s became apparent! (Oddly enough, no-one tried to revisit hotpants, perhaps a small mercy). 

After eating we went outside for a team photo by the Chipmunk. Here are a few of the photos from that line up.

Day 7 of the Regionals - Friday 1st July

Oh dear, another day when we hoped to get a slot but weren't lucky. We scrubbed around lunchtime, and Alan C - our airspace man for the week - arranged a little treat for us with some friends of his! Just after 1pm we had our very own Shenington fly past of the Reds, in formation and with smoke!!

The background sky doesn't do them justice of course, but it gave us all a buzz to see them en route.

After that some people went out, the director had a nap, while Paul & Lucy prepared for the evening's entertainment - their famous quiz. I went for a walk round the local footpaths to get some fresh air - there were some amazing vistas of poppies, which seemed quite appropriate on the Centenary of the start of the Battle of the Somme.

Pam & Emilia (with a bit of help from Lech!) prepared Bigos and cheesecake for our Polish supper, and served a large number of people as the competitors came back for the quiz.

Amazingly we ended up with 77 people in the clubhouse, in teams of 4 or 5 (meant to be 4!), answering a series of interesting questions. We discovered that none of us (even in groups) could come anywhere near passing the British Citizenship test, which is slightly worrying. Once again Paul managed to 'question bomb' Lucy into saying something embarrassing (to her) so that she achieved the colour of the pink wall. Works every year. Just ask her about alligators....!!!!

Another great evening - thanks Paul & Lucy for all your hard work.

Day 6 of the Regionals - Thursday 30th June

Today was supposed to be a good day, but the weather patterns didn't play ball, it being too windy and showery. We gridded the pilots in preparation, and the Wilga from HB flew in to help out, but all to no avail and we scrubbed mid afternoon when the hoped for slot didn't materialise. 

Kevin Atkinson's submission to the daily photo competition summed it up quite well:

From our point of view the scrub was quite useful as it gave John & I time to prepare curry & stroganoff for 60 without the usual rushing around at the last minute. We fed 63 people in the end, and in spite of the huge amount of food we prepared, every last bit was eaten! This after people had spent all day eating the amazing cakes that members had brought in....

After dinner we all went off to the hangar where one of our regular competitors, Jane Nash, gave us a classical guitar recital. The music was quite excellent, and you could have heard a pin drop in the hangar (very unusual) while she was playing. We really are very lucky in our competitors....

Rowan took these nice atmospheric photos from the hangar entrance, where more people drifted in to listen. Another great evening.
  

Day 5 of Regionals - Wednesday 29th June

Forecast for Wednesday had been a drinking forecast, which is what we'd all done. Once the blues band had packed in the previous night, the locals had been strumming guitar and singing, only to be joined by various competitors in the clubhouse. They shifted the piano into the main room and when I sloped off to bed after midnight Alex O was playing the piano accompanied by Phil & Abenezer on guitars and a large crowd of singers.....

'Normal' 2016 weather prevailed on Wednesday morning, and we scrubbed around briefing time. Lucy got on with some maintenance, while John & I took the opportunity to do the fresh food shopping for our meal tomorrow. It was the second and last time I left the airfield in 9 days - both times for food so not sure what that says about me!.

Andy Linfield and son Simon prepared dinner for us all, and we were entertained on what turned into a pleasant sunny evening by the local Adderbury Morris Men. They provided a very jolly entertainment, and also an impromptu training session for one or two of our pilots! Hopefully they will come and fly with us later in the summer - a couple of them were very interested in gliding.

Pete, one of our competitors, got stuck into the dancing!

Day 4 of Regionals - Tuesday 28th June

After an interesting weather briefing, once again we had a small DHT task set for the field. The minimum length task was Edgehill, Towcester, Bicester and back, and so confident was Graham W the weatherman that it was going to be a very short slot that we briefed early, gridded early, and started launching the gliders at 10:45am!!!!!

Once again you can see the sky changing as we launch the gliders, and some absolutely cracking cloud streets down to Towcester. 

 

We launched the grid quickly and then they were off....the scores were degraded due to the speed that the top pilots did the task, but we were able to get everyone flying which was much appreciated.

The pilots all went to park up.derig their gliders, and by the time they handed in their loggers it was already raining! An excellently judged task so full marks to the weather man Graham and task setters Paul & Graham Paul. Once the scores were sorted (not without a few more hiccups - sorry Paul!), we were able to relax at last. 

Leslie cooked a lovely meal of Quiche, salad and 'Far Breton' for pudding, then we went to Steve Langford's beer talk. Steve is a real ale enthusiast, and had brewed us three different ales to try, whilst giving us a talk on the history and brewing of beer. It was a great evening - good beer & great fun, followed by Clive's new Blues Band in the bar. Overall a great day with lots going on.

Day 3 of Regionals - Monday 27th June

Forecast looked much better today and Paul set a three hour Assigned Area Task for the field. Task was Edgehill, Bicester, Didcot, Wantage, Thame and then back to Edgehill. Each of these points had an area so that the pilots could choose to extend or truncate the flight depending on local conditions and the speed flown. 

 

Some shots of the locals! Carole getting Derek ready for off, Lucy launching John Klunder, Paul photographing Damien photographing Rod Weaver (!), Tim launching his syndicate partners Paul & Tim Fletcher.

The day went well and a big variety of task lengths were flown. Just a few landouts, and everybody fine, plus the first 1000 point day at a competition in the UK this year (yes, the weather really has been that bad!) so we were all happy.

Phil Atkinson cooked tea for everyone, then Julia Miles gave a talk about her Ambassadorial travels while we sorted out the scores. Today seemed a lot more straightforward thank goodness! Tim Fletcher won the day!