Posted on

Women Go Gliding and a great weekend – 1st one in sept

Well we all know about Tony’s cake hunting exploits, heading off to find the bake off tent only to be disappointed to see that they film it in spring but Saturday was epic.

We know it was epic because Martin was sat in histractor cab

internet equipped tractor mowing his lawn(s) watching us all on glider radar and took this screenshot…

glider radar

Those of us in the air… well…

riv air 1

…well it was strong and high and gin clear

c bnw

The Jani went off on task…

phil keevil

Phil’s shot of our friends at Keevil

phil bath

Abeam Bath, with one eye on the airspace of course.

ufh

Uffington White horse and one of 3 hill forts Claire saw, there is one near the airfield – do you know where?

I don’t have any pics of Jonty who went to Aston Down and back and took 5hours and 6000ft about doing it, bagging full silver. [STOP PRESS – see here for his tale and a great video http://shalbournegliding.co.uk/2017/09/what-a-difference-a-day-makes/ ]

And then we bbq’d some steak!

Finally thanks to James for fixing the starter motor on the winch to allow us all to do this.

 

On Sunday we hosted our Women Go Gliding Event

The weather was dismal. You should have been here yesterday, actually you should have been here today as well, it was great!

The drizzle tending towards persistent rain forced us to retreat inside for tea and cake and a introductory talk by Liz

liz ppt

Before moving over to the BGA simulator for, err well more tea and cake

liz tea

Introductory briefings and first lessons were given in the sunnier climes of a virtual Slovenia, it was commented on, mainly to Martin, that the virtual 7knot climbs to 5000ft were in fact much like yesterday.

We hosted about a dozen new women, they will be back to do the flying part of the day when the weather is nicer and we hope they will love it as much as we do and join.

21329849_10155207238597772_2052320056_o

The simulator was great fun, that and the people (and tea and cake, mainly the cake to be honest) really made the day, first time I’ve flown two people in a glider 😉

 

Thanks to all those that helped out on the day and baking the cakes…

While we were doing all this Perlan was flying in Argentina reaching 52,172 feet (GPS altitude) – a new world record absolute height.21270816_1414428445277700_7789464556225218563_n

Finally Claire and I popped into the Crown in Upton on the way home, really nice…..

IMG_20170903_174112_160

 

Posted on

Mid August argentum weekend

Saturday

Well saturady was ok really, a little westerly breeze was a bit annoying and it wasnt a classic sky but it was soarable for a good while. Tim and Pete E knocked out the instruction and a few gliders rigged.

Whilst Claire and I were climbing away, it all went very dark,  the animals seemed oddly quiet, the vario spun round and round and round, the radio fell silent… …but it was just the EB29 competing in the European champs flying over us along with a few mere JS1C-21ms

 

12aug

 

Sunday 

Sunday was the days of days, thats what we expected. Many many gliders rigged and we formed a grid and launched them off on task. Most of us ran up the oxford corridor in excellent conditions, nearly 6000ft cloudbase and good 5+kt averages, sometimes troubling the top stop. Most found however that when they turned round it was spreading out and that made the return much more difficult. Claire and I continued on task to Bullington but abandoned our declaration for Oxford again at Chievely and bravely ran away home.

Huge congrats to John and Jeremy on their 50km Silver Badge flights, both completing Oxford out-and-return tasks.

 

12aug john

John’s picture of his winglets

 

PHIL SILVERSTONE

Carol insisted on some old-school TP photography, for those that are interested they can download the on-line OS maps and spend tonight working out if they are in sector…..

pete on task

Running out under a perfect sky

 

 

 

Posted on

Saturday 22nd July

As ever our airfield looked beautiful as the sun rose over stunning scenery,
20170721_063347…ah hold on wait that was Umbria, Italy on friday, got my photos out of order.

The airfield was beautiful as ever but framed in the moody greys of a typical British summers day.

20170722_110823

Looking at the radar there looked like a slot between the rain in which we could do something useful. Unfortunately the duty winch driver had eaten the puffer-fish at a Japanese restaurant and wasn’t available to join us, a call went out and many thanks to Stan and Steve for coming to winch for us.

20170722_123733

We dodged a few showers and got some flying in, one of the students having climbed to 2000ft misjudged their circuit in the strong lift conditions arriving at low key at 1000ft, I took control flew back up to high key at 1200ft, lost height to that more appropriate before suggesting they try again 😉

Eventually blanket persistent rain stopped play and we put the toys away.

Bet you thought we’d scrubbed!