Wednesday 19 September 2012

Winds 290/15, and surprisingly good soaring.

Eric Lowne set off on a downwind dash to Norfolk in his K6E. Good effort but landed out at Sackville Farm.

Christine Lawson and Neil Abram continued their development.

Welcome to Mike Nelson who is a member seldom seen on the field. Mike took off for a flight in the 2 seater and was rewarded with a great thermal marked by Alan Langlands. Mike thoroughly enjoyed his flight and landed the glider to prove he could still do it. His landing co-incided with Alans field landing somewhere near Chipping Norton.

Trish was later seen towing the trailer for the retrieve.

Thanks everyone for a great day.

Don

Tuesday 18th September

Winds 300/20, strong thermals and some ridge lift.

Christine Lawson continued her training, and was joined by Chris Steatham, a new member. Chris managed to double his flying time in one flight.

Lucy Wootton fell short of silver height by 150ft, never mind better luck next time. lucy found cloudbase at around 4600ft QFE.

John Rogers climbed out of the tug and zoomed off down the cloudstreets to Pershore, and then romped home again.

What a great day, looking forward to more of the same tomorrow.

Don

Monday 17 September

Winds 230/20 and cloudbases rising to 4000ft.

Welcome to Christine Lawson who has started a gliding course. A good introduction today with thermal climbs to 3600 QFE (for a while). Christine will be with us for several days, she lectures and consults in Psychology, so nows your chance for some advice.

Neil Abram continues his pilot development training.

Thanks to John Rogers for manning the tug all day.

Another great day, thanks everyone.

Don

Friday 14th Sept

What a great ridge day, Bruno did a great job treating Nigel Curtis, Neil Abram and course students to a soaring flight. Phil Atkinson, John Rogers and Lee Ingram all flew single seaters and had well over an hour each. Ridge flying then into 6kt thermals to 3,700ft.

Golden Saturday 1st Sept

First let me thanks all who put in a stirling effort to achieve some 45 launches. In particular those who manned the winch and Tessa who took on the role of LPC most of the day ably helped with Lucy who made sure flight logging went well and kept me and all of us with fresh water on what was a quite hot day.
The day was not particularly good for soaring but plenty of training flights for Lech and Ashleigh.Ashleigh had completed a couple of concentrated courses and used the weekend to consolidate some more advanced exercises and carry out a couple of new ones.All in all 5 flights and moving close to that first solo.

Leck is potentially new member having previously been an ATC instructor and now planning to return to the sport.He also had some 6 flights and was rapidly loosing the rust and being brought up to date with the newer exercises.

Eric managed 35 minutes in his Ka6 and Tim and John Donovan took a 3000 ft A/T to get back in practice before leaving for Systeron at the weekend.Bob Playle had is Capstan out for an airing and several  trial lessons where conducted in the K21
Patrick, one of the Ka boys took some nice pics.

Lucy in the Ka8 on final's

Bob and Capstan turning onto finals

All in all a very pleasant day spent with very helpful members.who took advantage of many solo flights
Weekends are about getting good training and flying as well as socialising with your fellow pilots.Come at weekends and have fun.

Looks a perfect ending

Derrick

27 August 2012

Monday 27^th August

Winds 180/40 at 1000'. At the launch point, a 15kt wind, gusting 20kts, made it a difficult day. A warm front, shortly followed by a cold front out to the west. Thankfully, the rain held off until 1600, so we were able to get some flying in before then.



Don with his tea!



Patrick Taylor was brave enough to take the first flight of the day and in doing so, gained some valuable experience at approaching at high speed through a strong wind gradient. He returned to the launch point to be greeted by Don: 'You are flying again!' So with little choice in the matter, Patrick managed a commendable 11 minutes on his second flight.

Next to fly was John D, with his friend Yoav from Dunstable. They did 4 flights in total, ranging from 3 to 11 minutes.

Lucy and Dave L-M also did a flight each to keep current.

Meanwhile, Don looked on from the bus, drinking China Tea and eating Gary's Jaffa Cakes. Tim and Gary also helped out. Later, Gary even got his kite out!

Tim and Patrick headed to the Tysoe shop to get their lunch and kindly shared some of their food with the rest of us!

After rain stopped play, we headed back to the clubhouse to drink more tea, while Patrick and Yoav sat practice Bronze C papers.

Overall, we got the best out of a challenging day!

Lucy



Tim and Gary sheltering on the bus!



Preparing to launch



Patrick and Yoav working on their Bronze Papers

Friday 24th August

Winds 170/10. Occluded front to the west. Low pressure building over Ireland. The morning forecast as reasonable soaring with rain by mid pm.

Robin Jackson showed us the way by taking the first sniffer flight and soaring away.

After a frustrating week for Steve Nicholls, our visitor from Bowland Forest, he took off in the club Astir and away he went----fantastic.

Meanwhile back on earth Eric was on lawn mower duties, of course that isnt Eric the dog, its the other one. Apparently there is no e in Erics name so he must be Ric Lowne?

The day ended with a curry in Kineton, 12 of us descended on the curry house and a thoroughly good meal.

Don

Thursday 23 August

Probably the best soaring day of the week, winds light westerly and some overdevelopment.

2 visitors arrived from the Bidford comp, one was our very own chairman. Bad luck, the weather wasnt quite good enough to complete their tasks.

Andrew Linfield and Eric Lowne completed their training for friend and family ratings.

Phil is now officially our soaring God of the day and now speaks in “vario2 rather than the English of the rest of us mere mortals. Well done Phil.

Jack, Scotts 13 year old son, had his first flying lesson in the K13 and discovered its not hard at all!

Brunos pupil had another busy day.

A communal dinner finished the day with Mexican Fajitas and all the trimmings, including a homemade Guacamole made by Lucy.---Delicioius.

Don

Wednesday 22 August

Winds 210/10, with some convection and cloudbases rising to 3200 ft QFE. The lucky ones flew in the convergence that conveniently set up on the downwind leg.

Welcome back to Ross and Mark Daniell who continued their basic training with an intensive day course. Launches and landing now coming along a treat.

Bruno and his pupil enjoyed a productive day, with a very tired and happy pupil at the end of the day and a grinning Bruno.

Thanks everyone for a great day.

Don

Tuesday 21 August

Weatherwise a reasonable day with light southerlies to start and ending with westerlies. Needless to say that all involved changing launchpoints part way through the day.

Welcome to Lech Zakrzewski, an ex ATC instructor of some 40 years ago. Lech spent the day with us and was flying the entire flight by the end of the day.

Thanks you to Lechs family for letting us pinch some of their picnic lunch.

Well done to Lucy Wootton who has now completed her bronze C.

Don