More Soaring, K.8 Conversions and another Cross-Country

King of the sky - Bob converts to the K.8

End of week update:

Wed brought a cold front during the morning, but this cleared around lunchtime and Bruno went off soaring with Bob P in the blustery post col front thermals to work on Bob's AFR.

Thu was calmer again and Neil found himself in the K.8 as did Bob K who converted to it for the first time today. Others out included Dave L-M, Tim D, Clive S (BI work-up with Bruno and myself) with Graham & Al flying XC in the big Nimbus.

Friday saw more BI training with Clive W (from North Hill) joining in with Clive S and Bruno on another busy day with lots of launches and plenty of smiles from Neil A and Bob K as they continued to refine their K.8 skills. All in all, a very successfull week to start our midweek summer flying!





Graham & Al - Good Finish!

  

Gorgeous For Gliding



Neil after his hangar landing.



Beautiful weather for March with light winds and blue skies provided an excellent training day. Bruno ran the day flying 2 early training flights with Neil A, who then re-soloed. Neil flew further solos during the day including the hangar flight for DDB at the end of play. Craig P, who discovered the club as a result of our recent Whittle Jet Day, had a great introduction to gliding, flying in ideal "first day" weather with Jane on his Day Course, so much so that I'm sure we'll see him back for more. Mick F flew some solos on DVX whist Bruno carried on with Susie S-W and Scott T. Terry T also turned up and and flew 3 solos. 23 flights in all, plus John M in his RF-4 motor-glider.

Summer Ops: Day 1 - Super Soaring at Shenington

Bruno & Neil Climb Away From The Edgehill Ridge In DDB

Shenington Airfield

Day one of Summer Ops for 2012 and what a day! A bit blustery, but super soaring with a brisk NW'ly providing ridge lift easily accessible from one of Kath's expert winch launches. The ridge in turn acting as usual as our main trigger for 3-4kt climbs to 4000ft (I saw one at 5.2kt on my averager!!!).

Spring Skies

Soaring The 20!

Bruno was busy in DDB providing excellent soaring training for Neil A and Peter B. Private owners out today included Eric flying Cosy Pyjamas (K6e CPJ), John L-C in his DG, myself in my ASW20 (first day out at SGC this year not instructing - hurrah) clocking up 2hr 30min. The 25Kt wind at height made it tough to get anywhere although I managed a bimble to Gaydon and Banbury (and abandoned an attempt to get to the Cotswold Edge) whilst Graham & Lee managed to punch into wind in the Nimbus 4, but eventually unfortunately but safely ended up in a field near Southam to claim the first land out of 2012! All in all, a great start to the season! Don't miss the next soaring opportunity, keep up to date with the soaring forecasts at http://weatherton.blogspot.com/

Eric On My Wingtip

Soaring Above The Castle at Edgehill



Towing DDB Back To The Launchpoint

Saturdads at Bloxham

With the kind agreement of the K6 syndicate Clive, Robin and Jon took a K6 and rigged it in the car park at the Butterfly Meadows Childrens' Centre in Bloxham this Saturday.  This was timed to coincide with the monthly "Saturdads" session, where dads bring their pre-school age children for a morning of play (and the odd bacon roll for the dads).  The keen interest shown by dads and kids alike is shown in the photos.  We promoted the club and handed out leaflets.  We hope to see a number of the dads signing up to air-ex experiences and, you never know, possibly becoming future club members.

Post from Jon Cartlon

Winter Ops: Midweek Update

Wed - Aerotowing through the breaks in the 1500ft cloud was an amazing sight. Phil Z and Martin Lawence completed their aerotow section of his AFR but the day was called short to lowering cloudbase.
..
Thursday - Lovely blue sky and nil wind, Martin Lawence completed his AFR with a few winch launches whilst Al Cook and Graham Paul flew the Nimbus and John l flew the DG800. Later in the day engineering expert Scott Taylor also flew 2 launches. Great day you should have been there.
..
Lee

A great day for February.

A great day for February. Benign conditions, ideal for training, lead to us having 33 launches of which I did nearly half. Thanks to Tim Donovan for helping out with the instructing. and Jane, Phil and Paul who helped with the winching.

Graham P

Whittle Jet Open Day

What a great day!
A quiet moment (there weren't many) at the Midland Air Musuem display in the clubhouse on Saturday. It was good to see so many visitors, from near and far - we got through a lot of tea and cakes!

Over the last few weeks Mark Hampson has surveyed the airfield and its various sites and compared his findings with the original plans. The result is these fantastic new drawings of the site with the remaining buildings and hardstandings marked in colour. We plan to give these a permanent home soon, somewhere in the clubhouse.

There was a large audience for the flight of the jet

...and we all wanted a close up view afterwards.....

A perfect day for viewing the old control  tower during a 'guided tour', following the airfield plans.

The Jet...





Photos by Clive S

Videos by Ian A

Photos from our open day...





Remembering The Pioneers



An artist impression of the Pioneer running the Edgehil Ridge

 

Beautiful blue skies set the perfect scene for our 70th Anniversary Whittle Jet Open Day.  It is with pride that we remembered this element of the secret history of aviation and the part our airfield played in it.

The Gloster E28/39 Pioneer W4041 - the Whittle jet - had first flown at Cranwell in 1941. Edgehill was then selected as the base for secret flight tests due to its proximity to the manufacturer's Gloster and Power jets.  It is interesting to note that the first flight tests of jet engines were conducted by attaching the jet to the rear fuselage of a Wellington bomber - strapped to the tail cone. A hanger was built to house the jet in secrecy on the aerodrome perimeter between Christmas Corner and Shenington turn (near where the John Deere buildings are now).  The jet made its first trial taxi on February 4th 1942.  Flight testing began and it flew successfully until March 24th when part of a turbine blade broke away in flight and an emergency landing was made on the airfield. Flight trials of the Gloster were resumed in June 1942. 

As well as the open day events we had our busiest club flying day so far this year. Duty Instructors were by Paul N & Derrick S with Tez as LPC and Dave G tugging. Lots of club members were out and enjoying the fine weather, getting current and some even managed a bit of soaring! Refreshments were on hand all day, splendidly run by Mary and Jane.  

Sir Frank Whittle

We also had a fine 10 minute display from Tony Hooper with his model jet aircraft (the only other jet to date to fly from the airfield) to everones delight. There was also interest from the press with a visit from the Stratford Herold. A big thanks must also go to Jan A, Mark H, Tess W and all the other club members who organised the event.

It was to our delight that we had a clubhouse full of interested visitors the whole day ranging from interested locals to long established aviation buffs. We are particularly indebted to the representatives of The Jet Age Museum and The Midland Air Museum  who both brought excellent displays and exhibits to our event and to Barry Jones for his excellent lecture this evening. We are also much indebted to Eric Kaye, life-long local resident and author of the book 'THE STORY OF RAF EDGEHILL', who was just a small boy when the RAF appeared at Edgehill, for all his expert assistance and unstinting enthusiasm.