Thursday 29 August 2013

Travels with a glider....


Wednesday:  Phil & I groped our way down to Lee on Solent today - the seaside!! Great fun, though cloud base was less than 2000' and viz about a mile & a half, so initially slow progress. Staying overnight here and lets see what tomorrow brings!! The guys at Lee are really friendly.


Thursday : Looks like Phil wants to go to sea......


Russell

Wednesday 28 August 2013

BH Monday

Monday showed more promise, and there was a flurry of activity preparing gliders at the start of the day. Graham and Al rigged 60, just back from Dunstable Regionals, Russell & Phil A were planning to fly JYR in spite of a non functioning engine, and G2, H20, KHC and CPJ were all taken up to the launchpoint before lunchtime.

Gavin and the midweek team got things moving early on, with two new students (Rob & Reuben) to fly and plenty of club members to help. John Dono turned up to fly with Tim H and got out DVX, and the K8 and Astir were soon at the launchpoint too. The weather took a while to get going, with no-one managing to stay up much before 1:30pm although it looked promising for while before that which kept everyone trying! Eventually the single seaters started staying up, and then the K13s started doing cable breaks. Gavin sent Rob Couper solo in the afternoon which was a great start to the week's flying. 

Graham P went out east in 60 to Bedford. I also went east though I turned back too early by Sywell - predictably conditions improved as soon as I set off back so I continued on to Bidford where the sky looked great...
John le Coyte flew the Presidents Triangle, while Russell & Phil visited Silverstone and some of the other local airfields, including Enstone and Barford St John. JYR stayed airborne till after 7pm - the thermals continued much later than we had all expected.

Now I'm sure all you locals know that Barford is not a good place to land, but one of the Shenington Regionals pilots was not aware and managed to make a safe landing there - not quite sure how!!  It's covered in wires, though it's not so obvious from the photo below taken in the poor vis in the cloud shadows. Don't be tempted to try landing as there are usually sheep where there aren't any obvious wire structures:

Back to the launchpoint and the Shenington K6 mafia has spread its hooks with Alistair Frier and Norman Danby taking over ownership of Dave Weitzel & James Stafford's old K6E HJD, now lovingly restored after many years sitting in a trailer. Alistair was getting his hand in flying CPJ on Monday. There is also a new Skylark syndicate forming, with Tony Taylor and two new club members. The K8 and Astir were kept busy all Monday, and I lost count of the cable breaks being visited on the K13s. Kath provided excellent launches as always - nice to be here during the weekday operation for a change. John R was tug pilot for some trial lessons during the afternoon - the 2 tugs came back from Nympsfield so he had a choice of three for once.

Back at work in the Birmingham TMA now, but hope you're all still having fun at Edgehill.


Tuesday 27 August 2013

Bank Holiday Blues - part 2

Yes, you've guessed it. Sunday dawned grey and miserable - more low cloud, a lot more people on site, nothing much happening! After copious amounts of tea, Mary hosted a impromptu marketing discussion around the clubhouse table and lots of ideas were bounced about. After this Mary cleaned the kitchen, and the two Johns fixed the broken toilet in the Ladies! Members of the K6 mafia were fettling trailers and polishing bodywork...

Seemingly defeated by the weather we went off to Tesco mid afternoon to get some food for an evening meal, and arrived back at 4pm to see the skies clearing and little cumulus popping over the airfield. At this point we all decided to go flying, and the K8 and CPJ were dragged out to the launchpoint up at the farmyard, with Andy manning the winch. 

 Rowan & John R had flights in CPJ, as did Eric & Andy. Robin & John W and Tess flew the K8.
 We did 8 flights, out of which 3 were decent soaring flights, then we packed up the kit around 6:30pm feeling that we'd gained a bonus from the day! See right for some of the team posing at our informal launchpoint >




Later that evening 14 of us sat down to a dinner of pork stroganoff, followed by fruit crumble (Shenington blackberries foraged by Phil A from dingley dell) and a few glasses of wine. Bob & Jan arrived back from Pocklington just in time to eat, and Eric (td) was clearly pleased to see Colin back from his round the UK trips to Clacton & Yorkshire.   

Andy caught this photo of Eric modelling his new 'trailer work/derigging' anti head injury hat:




Bank Holiday Blues - part 1

Yes, Saturday did start as all Bank Holidays seem to these days - low cloud, rain, miserable looking views from the webcam....However...the day did become flyable shortly before a lone Trial lesson visitor turned up having driven from the other side of Swindon. Russell, who had very kindly rushed up from the south coast to provide instructor cover, took Qasim on his first ever glider flight, and so the day was not a complete waste of time! Thanks again to Russell and Rowan (tuggie) for staying on site all day and flying our visitor - he thoroughly enjoyed the trip.

Saturday 24 August 2013

Friday 23 August

Double Solo Day!


Ross Daniell, on Shenington's "Fixed Price to Solo" programme decides that it is time to start paying for his flights again and goes solo.  Not to be outdone, Max Langford, aged 16 and a bit, tops off a week of terrific GCSE results with a first solo flight.  Yes! Double thumbs up both of you!