Sunday 20th May

A nice day to fly, though a little blue in places, and hot everywhere! Some of the private gliders went off cross country, and there was plenty of club flying too.

 

 

The kittens have surfaced again and are distracting everyone on the walk between the clubhouse & hangar!

Sunday 13th May

Work commences on the foundations for the new shower/toilet block...Clive sent this photo.
(apparently a good day's flying too!!)

May Day Bank Holiday Weekend

Well, not quite the 'normal' weather for May Day bank hols, but we had a good weekend nevertheless! 

Saturday was sunny and hot with some small cu, turning into wisps in late afternoon. Our visitors fielded full teams, and pilots from Bicester, Oxford and Shenington launched on smallish tasks from about 11am onwards. Conditions were poor conditions so not everyone got round, but most people made it back to site.

Sadly none of our Shenington pilots (Al C, Alan L, George, Clive & Alistair) completed the full task.

Oops - buggy problems again!!

We had a bbq in the evening, thanks to the efforts of Leslie & Pam Z who did the shopping and prep, and Dan who managed the bbq & cooking. A big thanks to Iain S for winching all day in that hear, and to Alan C for managing what was potentially a chaos of gliders so that the launch point ran smoothly.

Sunday turned out to be blue and even hotter. Some pilots flew but the day was scrubbed mid afternoon as it was uncomfortably hot and not massively soarable. We sent Mick F to be penguin in the K8...

This didn't stop some of the visitors and the local team (Alan L, John W, Clive, Alistair) having a launch. Plaudits today for Jon C on the winch and David S managing the launch point without any meltdowns. Time for another club bbq in the evening.  Lech caught a moment's break while getting the bbq coals going!!

Monday had a mixed forecast so we held till after lunch. As nothing was staying up across all the local clubs (even the red kites!) on 'spot the glider' we scrubbed early at around 1pm. For the weekend, provisional results show Bicester with a win, very closely followed by Oxford and with us bringing up the rear! However the weekend was great fun and I hope it will encourage more of you to get involved next year. We are especially keen to encourage novices to use it as a springboard to do some early cross country without the pressure of doing all the prep/finding crew/worrying about the weather. It is also a great opportunity to get to see the other local clubs, and land at different airfields.

Thanks to all who participated this time, and to Lech, Alan L and Graham P for their efforts organising & hosting. 

Sadly missed....?!

It finally happened....the Blue loos have been demolished, artwork and all!! Here the gang get started with gusto...

Looks like the boys enjoyed themselves during the demolition process, with some interesting photos!! Joe gave a hand....

I think these are the Sheningon equivalent of the three monkeys!!

Tuesday 1st May 2018

Graham & Al Cook flew 60 on a 310km yesterday. Graham reports 1st leg 137kph under fat cumulus. 2nd leg turned blue and more difficult until climb to 6,200ft. Final leg spread out difficult and slow. Beats being at work!

First leg cumulus

Getting a bit blue!

Saturday 28th April

Graham P salvaged something out of Saturday. He reported the weather clearing midday to give some strong climbs and a cloudbase eventually above 5500 ft. Great lines of energy allowed Graham & Al to average over 90 kph to Cambridge despite a wind of up to 29knts....looks deceptively nice in this photo!

The Juniors Winter Series Visit - 13-15th April 2018

Last weekend we were visited by the BGA 'Juniors group' as part of their Winter Series flying weekends. People started arriving on Friday night, Ben & the Loughborough team cooked masses of curry and made sure everyone was fed. Saturday turned out sunny at last! Thanks guys!

Alan C & helpers organised the launchpoint with great efficiency, Paul F, Paul D, Alan L and helpers flew lots of the juniors in the various club and visitor two seaters, and some of the single seaters went cross country too. We did 93 flights in total, including aerotows using both the Chipmunk and Christine's cub. In the evening we had chilli & curry, plus lots of beer.

 

Paul, happy at getting back into the air at last with the DG.

Sadly the Sunday weather wasn't as good, but there was still some winching done by some keen students.

Thanks to everyone who helped out at the weekend, particularly the launchpoint helpers, instructors, winch drivers & retrievers at the 'business end' and the catering folks/bar/ground organisers at the other end. Great teamwork from club members, LUGC and the other visitors. A tiring but fun weekend. Next event is the Interclub Weekend on the first May Bank Holiday. See you there.    

Loughborough UGC update

Not the best week for weather but the Loughborough group made good use of what was available. We had a good days flying on Sat 7th, followed by a team dinner. Sunday was scrub, as was Monday.

Tuesday was cable break day, and some more ground school. Four of the group passed their Bronze paper : Miles, Jack V, Emma & Ben below:

On Friday there was more flying - congratulations to Jack Vincent who went solo!

In the evening Ben and friends made industrial quantities of curry for the many Juniors pilots who turned up for the weekend's 'Winter Series' meet. Saturday was good, with lots more flying, and Emma completed her first hour long soaring flight. Here is the team photo for the week. Great to have you all visiting, and look forward to seeing some of you again in summer.

Loughborough UGC Visit

We have a bunch of students from Loughborough University Gliding Club with us this week - please continue to make them welcome! Weather has been dire, but we had a busy Saturday doing lots of check flights and cable breaks once it stopped raining. Miles and friends cooked for us all after flying, so a good day was had by all.

Meanwhile up in the top hangar Steve is making great progress with our new facilities!

And last but not least , we have 4 new members...they're very small & glued to their Mum (Smudge2, who as adopted us) at the moment but they'll probably come out to play in a few weeks when weaned:

Thursday 5th April

Alert - sun seen at Shenington on Thursday!

This enables the new gel on Q5 to be shown to great advantage, as in this photo from Lech: