The Few.....Sunday 15th June

Another less than perfect day with the weather and another quiet day at the airfield......perhaps a little too quiet, as it turned out that we had visitors due and no-one rostered to fly them. Terry McKinley, who had stayed overnight after helping out on Saturday, stepped into the breach and with the help of Dave Price as LPC (again!) and Tim Treadaway in the tug, ran the operation all day.  

Thanks to the others who helped out adhoc, or were working on the club aircraft in the workshop.....

I think we all owe Terry Mc and Dave P a big thanks, and I hope everyone else is going to pitch in and help out next time either of them turn up to fly. 

Saturday 14th June

Forecast was not great which is why, I suspect, there weren't too many people around. We had three keen and willing instructors - Paul Noonan, Mick Furseden and Terry McKinley - so were able to fly all the trial lessons and visitors who turned up in spite of the grey skies. Chas Cook, Martin Lawrence and Dave Price managed to get some flying in, and Dave Gould did some tows when the cloud lifted high enough to make it worth while. John le Coyte flew his DG briefly, but otherwise there was no single seater flying. We owe a big thanks to the instructors and Dave P (LPC) for keeping the operation going all day......

Meanwhile back at the workshop Tim D & Andy L worked hard to get DDB online, and Colin fixed the K8 canopy before continuing with his Americas flight preparation. One or two of our Regionals competitors turned up with caravans and kit ahead of next weekend. Liz cooked an evening meal for those who could stay.

Weekend 7-8th June

The morning was wet and threatening at Shenington, though never actually got any thunder there but could see the occasional flash towards the North in the distance. Air experience and day course had been cancelled anyway and only a handful of the usual suspects at the club, mostly busy with K13 DDB the workshop.
In the afternoon the sky cleared and looked nice right into the evening.

Sunday looked altogether different from the Saturday start, a surprisingly small number of people turned up for what seemed a promising forecast. Gliders were rigged and prepared and tasks declared.

 The sky looked all for it, but within quite a short time it proved otherwise, heralded by the arrival of three visitors landing out, one from Nympsfied and two from Aston Down. Going by radio traffic, we weren't alone in getting unplanned visitors. 

One AD pilot took a winch launch relight and was back on the ground almost before the next set of cables were out, he then took a 3000' tow and (hopefully) made it home. The Nympsfield pilot got towed to a good looking street heading his way. The other AD pilot had me take him almost all the way home and I enjoyed a nice flight across the Cotswolds in SA.

The streets behind.......

Returning from AD, approaching Moreton in the Marsh

The day course cancelled from Saturday flew with Gavin, and his partner enjoyed a couple of flights too - both were put to work driving the retrieve buggies to help out our short-handed crew, thank you to both! Thanks to all who volunteered or were press-ganged into driving the winch and general duties.

The end of the day.....

Thanks due to all who helped out, we were short handed but with everybody mucking in we had an enjoyable day.

Rowan

Sunday June 1st

It's official - the sun came out again, and Sunday promised good conditions for the day. True to form the various toys came out of their boxes to join the club kit. Once again a last minute volunteer was invaluable - Derrick S stepped in to cover the duty instructor role and was kept busy all day with trainees and a few visitors. 

Phil & Russell went off cross country in JYR, visiting Kidderminster (why?!), Great Malvern and Bicester; Alan L took HMB to Uffington and Winchcombe; John Rogers visited Enstone, Thame and Northampton; Dave Smith went off somewhere in his LS6, but I don't know where! Lucy took her K6 for a flight and discovered a bit of a mismatch between her two varios - one reading 10 up, the other 2 down - she's pretty convinced that the first one wasn't correct! 

As you can see from above the gliders quickly began to disappear from the launch point. We also had plenty of other gliders overhead during the afternoon as the Opens & Standards routed past Shenington, and we had a drop in visitor from Snitterfield.

Bob Playle went off for a couple of hours in the Capstan with his son Malcom, Norman took HJD for a spin, Rowan flew C2 to check out his instruments, and Tess (anticipating some retrieves in late June!) flew H20 to get in some landings before the Regionals.  

Glen soloed again. Paul B, Paul D, Jon L, Maciej, Alex, Tim D, Mick F, John W, Trish all went soaring too....Jon L got away very late in the day in DVX for the last soaring flight of Sunday.

It's great to see Dave Heath back at the club and already cleared as tuggie, and Daryl is visiting again from Australia.

A big thank you to all who helped out, and especially to Derrick for covering DI all day. After the hangar doors were shut we all sat down outside with a beer, and organised a trip to the local Chinese take-away. Roll on summer...... 

Graham on expedition!

Some of you may know that Graham is currently on a gliding expedition to Morocco with some friends from Lasham. They're flying the big Nimbus in the Atlas Mountains. Here is the link to their  blog of the trip:

http://johngorringe.blogspot.com/

(if this doesn't work directly from the blog, just cut & paste into a browser page)
 
Looks fascinating, if a bit (lot) unlandable!

Saturday 31st May

The last day of May and the sun appeared to have done a runner for the eighth consecutive day! Unbowed by the grey skies, the duty team swung into action with lots of two seater flying scheduled - a day course, a number of trial lessons, and multiple club trainees. The day worked very well because a few key people stepped in to help. Bob & Jan - who had swapped with Brent for the morning lpc duty - ended up running the launch point all day, so that the duty tug pilot and lpc for the afternoon could variously drive the winch, Robin having winched all morning. Paul Fletcher who came up for a day off, ended up being number  two instructor all day whilst Russell flew with the day course.

Sam Potter about to take his first ever aerotow

It was a busy day for the two K13s - Maciej, Sam P, Martin P all had multiple flights, plus Sam T and Lucy also flew CCC. Our various visitors enjoyed their flights, and we had a nice day in spite of little soaring. After we'd packed up the kit, the sun came out at last! Liz finished off the day well by cooking an evening meal for the remaining club members.

A big thank you to Bob & Jan & Paul for keeping the operation running so smoothly.

Sunday 18th May

This was a day that was supposed to have better conditions that Saturday, but that didn't quite live up to the cross country promise. We switched ends on the grass strip but still had a healthy crosswind!

Graham set off on task again in the ASG and went to Basingstoke & back, reporting that he didn't particularly enjoy the conditions. Alan Langlands agreed when he got back from his flight to Blenheim & back, commenting that it was hard to stay up, and that lift was very patchy. Paul Noonan, Alistair F and Eric flew their gliders too, and that was it for the single seaters. 

On the club side we were again very busy with Instructor Renewals, and Mike M, John W and Pete all got signed off as Instructors again having been put through their paces all day. Bruno ran a day course in amongst our chaos (sorry Bruno), and managed to fit in some additional flying with Sam & Martin P, and Tony Tayler too. Clive took some friends flying in the K13 & moterglider, and we also did some trial lessons. Nigel flew the Falke, and a few folks took flights in the K13's when they were free. Thanks to all who drove the winch and retrieved gliders - and there was a lot of retrieving this weekend with all the cable break practice!  Thanks also to Rowan for doing a temporary repair on the crack in the canopy of CCC on Saturday evening so that we could all fly her on Sunday. We really did need all of our two seaters this weekend!

Saturday 17th May

Busy busy busy!!

A bright and promising day, with sunny skies and more clouds than promised. Graham had sent his Nimbus on an expedition to Morocco (! more of this later - Graham promises a blog for the trip, flying in the High Atlas Mountains) and so was flying a borrowed ASG29. He went off on task To Bury St Edmunds late morning. Later Phil & Russell took an aerotow in JYR, and Tim & John D went off in KHC.

We had an unexpected visitor just before we started flying. One of Damien Dyer's friends was flying past in a small aircraft en route to a race and had an engine failure. He just managed to make it over our fence safely to land at Shenington - a great relief to both him and us. Damien was flying in formation in his Yellow Cub and landed to see if he could help. They were unable to fix it that day but apparently Colin has come to the rescue and is looking at the carb. A very lucky escape when you consider the terrain & crop either side of Shenington.

It was very blue at times, with a healthy crosswind (it was a karting weekend!), and a day to drink lots of water. Out towards Silverstone it looked much better at the time I took these two photos (around 3pm).

The two seaters were flat out all day as we had plenty of visitors and trainees, plus Paul Armstrong & Tom Burton had come over from Hus Bos to carry out some Instructor renewals with Mike Miles John Whiting & Pete from Bidford. Alistair F and Eric flew their respective K6's, and HLH was flying too. New member Sam Potter and his Dad Martin had their first flights in a glider with Paul Noonan, and soon got stuck in learning all the airfield tasks, while Mary organised our Trial lesson visitors in moving and collecting gliders. Bruno was busy doing cross country endorsement training, and Phil M did some motorgliding with a visitor, while Robin flew G-Mild. The usual suspects helped out with the winch, retrieve and general odd jobs, and Rowan was kept busy again in the tug. At one point we even managed to get rid of all the gliders.......

We flew late and had a good day....as we sat by the bar Phil Hebden launched his balloon from the top hangar and went for another trip!

Sunday 4th May

Sunday started sunny and calm, the perfect day for Beth to come out of the hangar. This time we were in the 8 Acre field, Phil Marks in charge with a K13 and the Skylark at the launchpoint.

We had a most excellent start to the day when Phil flew a couple of flights with Glen Evans then sent him solo in DVX. Many congratulations Glen!

Russell & Eric took it in turns to fly BTH with various happy passengers, Alistair Frier flew his shiny K6e - HJD, and the Skylark continued to soar in spite of the usual early release on the winch. 

David Taylor then resoloed after a break from gliding, and Phil put John W through his paces in DVX. Christine took the last flights of the day in the K13 having spent the day as duty tug pilot.

After flying Eric (with various helpers - thanks Jackie & Carol) made a slap up meal of toad in the hole, veggies, mash & gravy for about 16 of us, followed by apple pie and custard.  Then off to the bar to celebrate Glen's first solo.....

Saturday 3rd May

Another fine day at Shenington!

We started with blue skies and small wispy clouds though it went blue in the late afternoon. We launched from the top field, and K13, Skylark and Jaffa were all kept busy with a mixture of visitors and club flying. Mary brought some of her family along for flights with Russell and Derrick.

There were also plenty of private gliders out. Graham Paul went off in 60 on some epic task. Alan & Trish took off in JYR for a declared 500km and did around 335km of the task, going out to Rattlesden in Suffolk and visiting Upwood on the way home when conditions weren't as good as forecast. Dave Smith flew his shiny new LS6 while 373 had multiple soaring flights with Eric & Andy, and Robin & Jon flew G2. H20 finally made it out of her trailer for the first time this year and had the cobwebs blown off in three soaring flights.

It was nice to see our new tug getting so much use. Nearly a third of the launches were aerotow and many people pulled off early and saved money under our new charging system.

After flying a number of us went down to the pub for tea.