That was the Bank Holiday Weekend, that was...!

Saturday saw the TA back with us for their weekend camp and more A/X flying. Derrick ran the day aided by Phil B and Lee. Lots of flying with some local soaring available made for a very successful day. 

Sunday was run by Paul N (subbing for John D) with the aid of Phil M and Dave P - again a busy day with lots of folks out flying.

Bank Holiday Monday saw the start of Bruno's '2-weeks on'. Despite grey skies and cool NW'ly winds there was again lots of local thermal and ridge soaring. Several AX flights were flown by me and Mick F whilst Bruno ran the show and took care of Michael on the first day of his weeks course plus club check rides, etc. The K6e syndicate was out to play, as was President Phil in his Skylark 4. A good days soaring was had by all.

President Phil and Course Instructor Bruno in club power struggle!!!

That was the week, that was...

Don Puttock ran the week, and there was lots of flying and plenty of soaring opportunities available, especially on Monday which saw us with a very light NE'ly and  good soaring conditions allowing me to fly my furthest distance this year of over 400km in around 6hours. Details at: http://www.bgaladder.co.uk/dscore.asp?FlightID=34011

Newmarket

Evesham

Meanwhile Bruno Brown, Bob Playle, etc. were having a great time at the National Two Seater Comp. http://2sc.os-bo.co.uk/

And Graham Paul was competing in the Dunstable Regionals.

http://dregionals.onglide.com/current-day.xml

Interclub Results...

Sunday 21st
I wasnt around, but it looked like a good day, congrats to new full member Sven in completing his Bronze GFT and Bronze exam.
The interclub at Hinton seemed successful even though everyone landed out.  Below is from Gavin;

Hi All,
[here] are the results from the Hinton Interclub Rerun

Class	Club	Pilot's Name	Glider Type	Glider Ident	BGA Points
Pundit	Banbury	Andy Preston	Discus	W4	494
	Bicester	Ian Smith	Nimbus 2,b,c	W20	1000
	Shenington	Rowan Griffin	Std. Cirrus	C2	778
Intermediate	Banbury	Carole Shepherd	DG100/101	DG	520
	Bicester	Paula Aitken	LS8 (15m)	D4	477
	Shenington	Alan Langlands	DG300W	HMB	800
Novice	Banbury	Stuart Johnston	LS4	452	406
	Bicester	Jon Verrill	ASW15	846	395
	Shenington	Eric Lown	K-6e	CPJ	101

As you can see it was a three way tie.  I do not have the final scores for the season but as far as I can tell Bicester won the Midlands Interclub league this year and should be competing in the National Interclub Final..

Thank you to everyone who participated this year and also to those who helped to organise our Shenington Interclub weekend. A thank you also to those of you who supported our intrepid fliers in other ways, by dragging them out of far flung fields (sometimes by tourch light) for example.  If there was a prize for the best organised and run Interclub weekend I think we would be hands down winners every year, thanks to Alan Langlands and the team, who bring the same precision and dedication to our humble event as they do to the regionals.

If you did participate and you enjoyed it we would have accomlished our primary objective, which has always been to have fun!

Keep flying away, and keep safe.  Next year ...
Gavin

Friday 19th
A busy day with Dick, Bruno and Dave Perkins, 44 flights with a bit of soaring - and congrats to Eric who did an amazing flight in his K6 to East Anglia, landing at Rattlesden thereby setting the goal post for the Far Point Trophy (furthest landout from site in a glider) see his flight here http://www.bgaladder.co.uk/dscore.asp?FlightID=33949. Meanwhile, Graham flew 311km in his Lak.
Bruno, Chris P and others went to fetch DDB's wing from Bicester and it was rigged and ready by the end of flying.

Saturday 20th
We welcomed the Sporting Bears fund raising group, with 18 flights a big thank you to instructors Dave Perkins, Paul Fletcher, Paul Duffy, and to John Donovan for flying some around in the motorglider.  Nigel Clarke did a stunning job as LPC (anyone who wants to learn this job needs to pitch up on his day and see how its done properly!), and Gordan Clarke helped organising the paperwork and glidex.  Thanks to Rowan for towing and Andy and Bob who drove the winch - the turn around with a seperate tow out driver was superb.  We actually achieved cables arriving with no gliders on the launch queue!  And the new bus was given a run up to ferry people to and from the club house.  As the visitors were all petrol heads, they all thought this was a bonus - I think they were counting the types of vehicle they had been in that day!  All our visitors had a great time and an evening BBQ and we hope to see a few of them come back again.  We raised around  £700 for the club and the fundraisers made around £50 for charity.  Thanks again to all the club members who helped, we couldnt have done it without you.
Pictures to follow...

1500KMs from Shenington!

Inevitably, the first day after the Regionals turned out to be a cracking XC day, with 4 of us clocking up around 1500km between us. Graham squeezed in the first 500k of the year from Shenington in his Lak before the front hit. Al C did 426k, I clocked up 320k and John Rogers (who did the aerotowing this morning and also offered to cross crew for me with Jane - big thanks) sratched away off the wire around 12:00 and still managed to clock up 250km in his DG100. 

Dick ran the day with Eric winching and Jane helping after flying her Discus.

Regionals Week 2011

More photos at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tupperware_pilot/sets/72157627224616123

Shenington Regionals

Catch up with the goings on at the Shenington Regionals Competition 6th - 14th August http://shenington.onglide.com/, daily blog, photos and twitter feed.

You should have been there...



Moreton-in-the-Marsh



8.8kts on the averager! (Best seen was 9.3Kt!!!)


Mon, Tue, Wed...What a fantastic 3 days of soaring weather with lots of XC (see BGA Ladder) and far too many "You should have been there..." stories to recount here. My highlights were gaining my best ever climb rate in the UK with litterally "off-the-clock" lift and seeing 9.3kts on the averager, and a climb with 3 Red Kites near Enstone - just magical!

The club held the race event for Phil Brennan's running club with great success and they literally drank the bar dry!

Lots more excitement to come next week with the Regionals.

There will be ad hoc club flying throughout the Regionals, similar to weekends running on a first-come-first-served basis club, with Dick and Kath here to facilitate, but no bookings due to the flexible nature of the event.

Come and join in the fun flying and social events.