Saturday 6th August

Busy takes on a whole new meaning when you have trial lessons, a day course, and visits by both Kent and Dublin Gliding Clubs all at once, with a volunteer crew. All credit to Alan C for keeping things organised at the launch point and ensuring that people got flying. We did an excellent 55 launches during the day, and had all the gliders out, including BeTH. Thanks to Paul F & Russell for working hard all day to see that people got flown.

Joe got on with the combining in the rape field, and Andy L took the opportunity inbetween retrieves to follow the combine and collect all of our kit that had been lost there over the last few months. Total score at the end of Saturday - three strops & a shockrope. Result!

PS Sunday 24th July

Rowan took these nice photos of Bob's Capstan out on the field. Bob was taking granddaughter Amy for her first flight in a glider.

Saturday 30th July

Another busy but sunny day. We had two day courses booked as well as some trial flights so Russell & Dave P were kept busy all day. The soaring part of the day was not over long which probably explains the limited number of private gliders out to play. 

Alan C kindly helped out with the afternoon LPC slot so that I could take my nephew Will up for his first flights in a glider. I'm hoping we have another convert though it will be another year or so till we can see if he's willing to come on a gliding course!

Saturday 23rd July

A very busy day. Lots of visitors, lots of clubs members, and some soarable weather. John W was kept busy all day with a stream of visitors, and a number of club members wanting instruction. Brent and Bob P had a hard job getting it all organised but did a sterling job. Rob Felton resoloed, then later in the day did his first flight of an hour in the K8. Alex Phillips also resoloed, and had his first solo flight in a K8. 

Dee continued her training, and has some thermalling flights as well in the K21.

I flew with Derek W, and Derek also helped out with some trial lessons, as did Gail later on - thanks both, much appreciated as we were very short on instructors! It was Liz's birthday, and she very kindly organised a salad & (indoor) BBQ tea for us all after our late finish, with a fruit pudding and cake too. Happy Birthday Liz!

Sunday 17th July

I know that last Thursday was great, but many of us were actually at work then!! It was with relief that the forecast for Sunday promised a decent day. We arrived late morning to find Gavin and his team of Mary's lodgers (is anyone allowed to lodge with Mary and not fly??) already pinging people off the winch. George had his mosquito out, Alistair had the K6e ready, and Paul D had decided to get the new Skylark BNN in the air. We Paul & Andy L helped rig BNN - very relaxed as just the lovely light wingtips to add - then off she went to the launch point.

I was lucky to get into the K8 just as the day opened up....a fantastic winch launch (thanks Dave) up to 1500ft then into a strong thermal and in no time I was looking down at the launch point, which was rapidly emptying of gliders. It was quite windy aloft, and the mosquito and Skylark had already disappeared up wind along a fantastic cloud street that gave lift almost continuously for about an hour. The Duo came out too and quickly disappeared. Every so often I had to soar the upwind side of the cloud to stay out of the wispies as the cloud base was only about 3000ft. Paul in BNN saw lots of gliders coming out low from Bidford over Shipston, I spotted a couple very low by Kineton but then they disappeared. Poor guys at Bidford have been running a Regionals during the latest bout of appalling weather and this was their last day - thank goodness they managed to get another task out of it, even though not the easiest day given the wave influence and low cloud base. Not many places to land yet either....

I took the glider back and swopped winch slots with Dave P. Whilst there we had quite a few landbacks, as we suddenly seemed to get stuck in a wave slot with a big blue hole. We had quite a few landouts from Bidford (including Alan & Trish!) - Gary & Dave G were kept busy towing them home. Gavin was kept busy with students such as Dee and doing checks with Leslie, Alex & Patrick. Gail took some visitors flying, and Clive flew the tug with a friend in the early evening. Graham Paul arrived back from the Bidford Regionals by air, having made it round the task in fairly difficult conditions.

Happy pilots about to launch!! Just look at that sky. BNN is a very elegant glider, perfectly painted for a British summer day.

We finished late, but had a lovely day. Thanks to all who helped out.

Adhoc Notes!

As of Tuesday 12th, Tim reports that the Falke is out of action for a few days for its Annual & ARC. There are competitions on at both Bidford and Bicester this week though, like us, they're struggling with the poor weather. Graham W, our met man from Bidford, reports that the weather for Thursday is looking decent at the moment so watch out for the 'local' updates on these 2 sites if you're considering flying those days.

Mary has published her third book, which is a collection of many of her old articles for S&G together with some new ones. There are some very amusing stories, and Shenington (together with many of our pilots) gets plenty of mentions. There are also quite a few photos of local characters!! Don't forget to buy your copy.....(resistance is futile, and anyway, how many gliding books are there around that mention our site & friends??).

If you want to see more of the Damien's photos from the comp, have a look at the following link:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/tupperware_pilot/albums/72157669198111960/page1 

 

 

Wednesday 6th July

June has been a disappointment for soaring, so I wanted to get into the air in the first half-decent day for weeks. I grabbed the K8 for what turned out to be the best part of the day, staying up for a couple of hours. There were strong thermals up to 3800ft, before high cover came in and everything went flat.

Tim D, Alan C and George all had their gliders out for an airing. Paul B, Robin, Gail, Susi, Martin J and Richard Allen shared the club gliders, and Abenezer went with Bruno in the Falke for a navigation exercise. Bruno was also busy giving french student Caroline lots of launch failure practice. We all know what that phase of training heralds: Bruno sent her solo the following day. 

With some air experience flights for visitors we achieved 30 launches in the day.

Dave Price

Day 9 of the Regionals - Sunday 3rd July

Last day, and a promising forecast so, after a late and rowdy party, we had an early briefing, an early grid, and an early launch!! Paul set a large DHT task - Edgehill, Manton, Chipping Norton, Great Witley (one for you Rog) then Banbury West for home. We got them launched early, and at last sat down in the sun for an hour with tea & cake before starting all those end of comp tasks.

The sky looked fantastic, sadly it wasn't quite as great out at the first turnpoint, and we had a few landouts at this point. Club members were a great help in going to collect people from fields, though a couple of people had aerotows back. That first leg slowed everyone down, so we didn't get people back till after 3pm, giving us all time for lunch and (more) cake. But there's more to do on the last day, from packing up tents and kit...to stowing cones, arranging prize giving, etc.

 

I was kept busy sorting out the scores for the final day so that we could have prize giving at 6pm and give people time to travel home. The rest of the team packed up around me, and the competitors slowly derigged gliders, tents and caravans. At 6pm we had the final prizegiving - there were prizes for the daily photo competition, Maureen got a prize for the best costume at the end of session party, and final scores for the day. Once again Tim Fletcher won the day, followed by Alex O'Keefe and Robert Hanks. The final scores overall gave Pete Smith the third place, Robert Hanks second place, and Tim Fletcher (for the second year!) came first! Congratulations to all.

Following the prize giving we had a final treat. Our friends in red were transiting home again, close to Edgehill, and they had agreed to give us another flypast. So at approx. 6:15pm, Shenington Regionals 2016 closed in style with a formation flypast by the Red Arrows!!!!

After that most of the trailers hitched up and off they all went - it looked rather sad once they'd gone. We packed up Control/hangar, etc for a couple of hours, then had a chinese takeaway together with a few remaining competitors in the restaurant. Very sad to go home after a fantastic week at the club - even without flying I really enjoyed the event. A big thanks must go to all of the club members who worked so hard to make the week a success - I think our visitors really appreciated it. 

Day 8 - Guess the club member

Shenington Club members (and friends) as you've never seen them before....

 

Day 8 of the Regionals - Saturday 2nd July

Today looked sunnier, but it was also not to be. Our morning briefing was enlivened by a genuine 1970s picket, organised by some of our competitors in order to get into the 70s swing ready for the evening....terrific demands, which sadly we weren't able to meet!!

After we scrubbed the day a few of our competitors decided to channel Blue Peter, and they made proper paper models of gliders and planes which you will now seen hung from the ceiling in the briefing room! Kept them out of trouble for a bit. Other folks started to assemble their outfits for the evening - slightly surprising what people are prepared to wear!!

Mary's granddaughter Michaela and her friends cooked us a fantastic Chilli dinner, with a fresh strawberry pudding. As the costumes began to appear, the full horror of the 1970s became apparent! (Oddly enough, no-one tried to revisit hotpants, perhaps a small mercy). 

After eating we went outside for a team photo by the Chipmunk. Here are a few of the photos from that line up.