Exploring the Rockies...

Two days gliding at Invermere saw some fantastic soaring weather with 10kt climbs to 13,000ft QNH over the Canadian Rockies. Jan had her first glider flight in 12 months today, in the Duo (comp number 007) with Lemmy Tanner ridge running the Kootanay Range spotting Elk along the ridge tops. Yesterday I flew a 190km XC with Lemmy exploring the amazing glaciers of the Purcell Range.

Sunday 15th July

Another excellent day at the airfield…

The forecast had promised blue skies and white cumulus (I know, quite a surprise!) and the day started just  like a proper summer day, the only fly in the ointment being the soggy bits of the airfield. Bruno set up at the clubhouse end and we all did our best to stay off the grass, starting with a single wire operation, and a queuing system for the gliders. Al & Graham zoomed off late morning in 60 (and weren't seen till tea-time), whilst many of the private gliders came out of their boxes. The weather kept us all guessing, cycling round blue skies and cu, then grey clag, then grey cu!  We got rid of most of the private gliders on the clubhouse run, then as the field dried out we were able to move up to the eight acre and improve our turnaround. Dave Price, Mary, Patrick and Brian Hucker provided great support to Bruno running the field, and Jane & Clive were kept busy flying some trial lesson visitors. In spite of the often questionable weather  our local gliders all got away - C2, GCY, Q5, H20, DHC and 373 all had good soaring flights and it was good to see Andy & Stuart Linfield again. Alan & Trish rushed back from the Hinton Interclub briefing to take off in JYR and fly the Pundit task with a remote start. They did the first turnpoint and part of the next leg, but then came back to Shenington - sounds like many of the other contestents ended in fields. We did have three visiting pilots land out so the conditions were not straightforward as we had hoped. It was good to see some of our new enthusiastic members packing in the flights, such as Patrick, NIgel C and Martin R, while many of the regulars got to fly the K13s and K8 solo.The weather wasn't as good as forecast but as it kept changing there was a lot more soaring done that you would have thought possible looking at the sky. The wind picked up late afternoon and it was possible to park up on the bowl and soar even at 6:30pm.  We packed the hangar at 7pm after a very satisfying day. Thanks to the duty crews,  tuggie & many winch drivers for a great day.

Tessa

Sat the 7th of July 

I promised to post some pictures of the Lancaster which gave us a real closeup at Shenington by prior arrangement would you believe, Rowan did a sterling job on the radio clearing him to overfly

 Approaching from the north over the farm field

 Past us at the launch point, shame more members weren't there.

Super shot as the Lancaster turned away on to a course for Fairford for a display.

Clive took these pictures which are quite stunning and hope you all enjoy them.

Thanks Clive


Derrick

New Tug Pilot

Better Than Forecast...And a New Member

Odd effect of prop on photo from RF4

Despite the low cloudbase to start, the day improved against the forecast and cloudbase rose to around 3000ft+ QNH, with the top-cover breaking and  blue skies producing some fair-weather Cu and local soaring.  It just goes to show that if you don't go, you'll never know!

I popped in on the way home from work around lunchtime for a cup of tea with a work colleague, Paul, and show him round the club and whet his appetite for some gliding.

Bruno and Val were busy instructing some more new faces and making the best of the respite from the rainy season. Visitor, Mike R, who just popped in to see what the club was like, found we had some spare capacity and had such a great day flying with Val that he joined the club!

John M arrived and kindly offered me a go in his RF4 motor-glider, which I gladly accepted - what a fun little aircraft! Thanks, John.  Eventually the Cu bubbled up into showers and we all piled into the bar for post flight beers!

Sat 7th July

On duty Tim Donovan, myself and Tessa as LPC. and Clive as BI

The day started early with a weather review, Notam checks and what TL were scheduled. Very quickly the arrival of two TL's spurred us on to get started.One couple had in fact come from Jersey.

The weather looked a bit ifif but in the main was located to the SW with better and more open weather to the east and south east.
Quickly Robin got the winch out followed by the bus and DDB in the farm field.
The first launch taken by Tim and Tessa  saw DDB testing a cloud formation lying SE to NW and various views saw this as some convergence between the poor heavy weather  to the SW and clearer weather to the east.
The flight was a wonderful 13min tester climbing to 1800 ft and soaring along the cloud line.

All progressed well between the odd shower and all the TL's had their flights
The highlight on the afternoon was the low fly past 300ft of the Lancaster on it's way to Fairford

Who ever organised this was a real star. What a wonderful sight of Lanc 1 appearing from the north across the far field and right over the top of us.

Sorry I didn't manage to get a shot but others did and if I get one emailed to me will put it on this Blog

Final thanks to the small team who were there including Lucy and Patrick who also managed some flights and in particular Robin for starting the day and John Whiting for carrying much of the days winching.

Just shows what you can do with an enthusiastic group all in all some 18 flights when I had to leave

We fortunately had MC and Lee in the Supermunk  to give us a forecast of approaching weather allowing us to carry on after a fairly heavy shower

Derrick

Cloud formation which Tess and Tim soared to 1800 ft.

Shot to the NW showing a real mix of cloud formation

Some of the team helping to make sure we had a productive and fun day between the showers

Our Regionals, and other flying...

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The Regionals team pulled off another enjoyable comp week with good food and plenty of good cheer, even if the weather didn't really play ball! Outside of the comp flying Bruno inspired both the club and comp pilots to fly on several days after scrubbing with quite a bit of training, and local soaring, including one afternoon of great ridge flying.

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Well done to Tez Bowler who completed his Bronze with NavEx and simulated Field Landings (difficult field selection at this time of year) and now only needs a 2-Hour leg to complete his XC Endorsement. Mike C's new Supermunk arrived and was used for grid and club launches, and Phil Marks made good use of the week checking out a number of us tuggies in it! We also had a number of folks fly in so despite the frustrations for the comp pilots, there was still a lot of good flying and fun going on.

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More on the regionals/photos at: http://shenington.onglide.com/current-day.xml

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