Saturday 20th December

Apparently a lovely day at the airfield. Sadly I was working but the forecast of a good North Westerly was accurate and those that turned up to fly had soaring flights in ridge and weak wave. Rowan was tuggie, and John Whiting was back as duty instructor after a long break.

Rowan sent through some photos from the day. Look at that sky from the tug - glorious! Nice looking view of the ridge too in the low winter sun. Great visibility for ridge flying at this point. The K13 and K21 did most of the flying, with many soaring flights, and Mick F rigged Q5 and also managed to get an hour in the air. Pretty good for December, don't you think?

 Above, John gets our visitor Peter togged up ready for his first glider flight. After a 13 minute ridge flight they went for a high aerotow and encountered weak wave as well as ridge lift, so a great introduction to gliding. An excellent day to finish off 2014, but there is still chance for more flying before 2015 so fingers crossed that we get more of the same this weekend. Merry Christmas all!

 

Saturday 13th December

A nice flying day today, with some welcome winter sun.

At dusk people started turning up for the party, Shenington and Weston-on-the-Green members. A few pre-meal drinks, with Gaynor (wo)manning the bar, then at 5pm we sat down to eat a fantastic Christmas meal prepared by Liz, with help from Mick & Jane. Lots of turkey and veg, followed by Christmas pud and plenty of brandy sauce!!

Ladies in charge!

Afterwards, we sat down to a quick talk (we were on a time limit as we were booked in at the bowling alley for 7pm) from Colin about his trip to America via Iceland, Greenland and Canada. We only had time for a brief spin through the photos - all looked terrific, and I for one hope to hear a longer version when Colin gets back from America next time.

On target a large crowd of Shenington & Oxford GC pilots headed off for the bowling alley in Banbury. We took over 4 lanes of the place, and did our stuff.....Colin turned out to be a bit good at this - the rest of us had mixed fortunes, often saved by the lane barriers (only used to be there for the kids when I last bowled!). A good (and noisy) time was had by all. A big thank you to Liz for organising the evening. It was great to see old friends and make some new ones from Oxford, and we had lots of fun. Happy Christmas everyone!