Author: Blogger

Arrived at the club to find Janus, LS7 and LS3 rigged under a very grey sky – what did they know that I didn’t?  The Janus was first out of the slipps and when it came back to earth after 7 minutes I concluded that it wasn’t really worth rigging.  Hm, got that wrong – next attempt it returned after an hour and half, via Swindon.  Guess they would have stayed airborne if Phil and Carol hadn’t pressing matters to attend to.  Connecting to lift wasn’t a foregone conclusion with only 11 of the 25 launches flying for more than half an hour.  Cloudbase got to 4,000′ and longest flight was 1:52.

Bob said we’d be packed up by 1.30. We all agreed…

At 5 we were looking up at Steve B in the K13 diminished by height to a mere speck.

In between we all went soaring, ok so cloudbase wasn’t great for most the day but there were good climbs out there. I think Bob spinned (span/spun just doesn’t sound right) every foot he gained back down again. Darren’s daughter showed me how to soar on her first flight, just as well as i couldn’t manage it today and everyone else had at least a half hour flight.

*on this day in 1961 Mercury-Redstone 3 carried Alan Shepard in to space.
His flight lasted 15mins, well down the leader-board of today’s flight times.

Alas I had a poorly stomach, I could have flown if I were thirty seconds away from a loo, which is quite difficult in a glider.
Still, all was not lost as I put this together as a promotional video which  hopefully give people who’ve not experienced gliding a glimpse of why we are all addicted to it.
Let me know what you think.

Chris (PP) B

…which as you know was a classic example of a windy but storming 500k day. I too have a tale to tell from that day and I’ll digress from today’s post to tell it here – I got a cold over Easter that was very slow in departing, but by Sunday I thought my ears were up to it. Took off, and similar to Chris, lobbed off to the Downs for a run to Lewes and back. It’s so pretty on a nice day, the south coast – rolling hills, turquoise sparkling sea with cute sailing boats on, that sort of stuff, although this is the first time I’ve rund the Downs on a ridge day and so spent significantly more time looking at grass(= rolling hills, of course) rather more closely than usual. Back to Butser, and after a low point invonveniently close to the Southampton airspace, found a good run back past Lasham where I climbed to cloudbase… and found that my ears weren’t ok at all. Had to give up and land, and couldn’t hear anything much at all for an hour. Still, at least my electrical and hydraulic systems (geddit) worked correctly, even if the pneumatics was a bit dodgy!

 So, back to today. As I stood on an empty airfield surveying the glorious scenery in warm sunshine, I wondered if we’d have another day like yesterday when it seems everyone decided the weather was rubbish. Wrong – Ayala passed at 4500′ having had up to 8kts. I’d received a sick note from Chris PP Bessent, get well soon Chris, but slightly ahead of ‘E’Team No3 Graham came Selvam, keen to take advantage of the day and add to his 15 or so launches, then Rod. A small flurry-ette of further arrivals helped us get things going, but it was a slow start to the day – always a problem when showers are forecast.

Note to newer members (and everyone else) – if there’s ever a day when showers are forecast, get there early in order to maximise flying ahead of the showers. As I say, today was another classic day. Unfortunately it was a classic showers-come-in-and-ruin-the-day-completely day. Have you noticed how big showers seem to sit pretty still for a while, not really coming your way, and then when you turn your back they gallop up at lightning speed (how mized a metaphor was that??) And so it came to pass. Not, however, before Selvam and Keith both took me soaring in the K13, thus offering a masterclass to the K8 which failed to stick. And Richard, having been baulked of flying on his duty day yesterday, unleashed his inner meanie on James H through the medium of annual checks.

Then, just as we were really enjoying ourselves, rain stopped play. Ah, ‘E’Team weather…