Author: StephenO

After winch problems postponed the first attempt, SUGC finally had a very successful training day on Thursday with 10 SUGC people descending on Shalbourne.  The weather turned out much better than anticipated and there was no rain as forecast. Some great flying was done with 25 launches total.

Two people had their very first flights with Alex J as BI with no throwing up.  SUGC had their very first trial lesson; hopefully there will be more of these in the future.  Four SUGC people flew with Alex throughout the day so he put his instructor rating to good use.  Big asset to SUGC!

The rest of SUGC flew with Stephen or Bob B, with some good progress made by all.  Flights lasted over half an hour – the longest flights yet for some members!  Elizabeth has almost nailed her landings without ballooning while Stan did surprisingly well with Bob B having not flown since October.  Beanie had a good sightseeing flight and found the foot maze after reaching cloud base at around 4,000ft.  After having two good flights with Alex, Oana progressed on to learning the rudder with Stephen.

The highlight of the day was the BBQ at lunchtime – a great way to celebrate the end of the academic year.  All flying stopped as everyone filled up on burgers and hot dogs.  Although some Shalbourne members were sceptical about the cooking standards of students!  This was such a success that we hope to do it again throughout the summer.  Ending a flying day with a BBQ and camping could be the future!

The day ended with a quick trip to The Crown before the drive back to Southampton.  Everyone looked completely exhausted by the end of day!
The whole day would not have been possible without the help of Shalbourne members.  Thank you to Paul M and Martin for driving the winch.  Thank you to Stan and Bob’s wife Mary for keeping the log. Thank you to Bob S for helping out at the launch point.  And finally, a huge thank you to Stephen and Bob B for instructing. I t was great to have a day for SUGC to get more people flying!  We hope to organise more days in the future.

Posted by Beanie

What a day!  With a silver tinge – height for Charles McC; duration for Bob S and distance for Steve G.  Between the 4 club gliders and 10 private ones (yes, 10!) we clocked up over 44 hours of flying and goodness know how many kilometres from first launch at 10:13 to last landing at 19:15.

The day started blue with promising looking clouds tantalisingly out of reach.  The clouds got closer but our blue hole persisted with lots of gliders sitting off-line waiting for the trigger.

By midday Chris B could sit on his hands no longer and launched into the blue – but with some clouds within reach (well, if you are flying a Ventus).  Chris was soon followed by Bob S.  On landing it might have been mentioned to Bob that it was 5 hours not 5 minutes required for silver duration.  Over the next couple of hours the remaining private gliders launched, after rethinking their tasks given the amount of blue to the north and west, and stuck to the sky.  I started my flight with a visit to Newbury, flying due east then north following the energy, I got there without stopping to thermal and arrived 200′ higher than when I left Rivar.  After a tricky scrape Jim C at one point in his flight headed south to play along the sea breeze front.  Chris B clocked over 300km.  There were reports of climbs of 7 knots getting to over 6,000′.  Duty instructor Tim R was kept busy with 4 hours in the back seat over 9 launches.  Other instructors (Bob B, Richard D, Alex J and yours truly) lent a hand providing another 8 launches and 5 hours of back seat flying.

All this flying would not have been possible with out the heroes of the day.  Andrew P on the winch most of the day (and not getting to fly).  James H responding to an emergency callout when frothy oil emerged from the winch engine.  Paul M for log keeping most of the day.  Special thanks to Tom F’s mum who provided delicious home baked chocolate brownies.

… of cable.  Wednesday 13th May was forecast wet and entirely unsuitable for flying, Thursday not looking a great deal better.  A call was put out for help to change the winch cables and, despite the forecast, a number of stalwart members turned up.  The old cable went straight into the skip and replaced with shinny new cable.  For good measure the monthly guillotine checks were also done and the roller boxes removed, cleaned and lubricated.  In the event there were only a couple of short (but heavy showers) but the accompanying thunder did not encourage us to get the gliders out and lift a metal cable near to the clouds.

After completing the cable change it looked OK to fly but the movement in the trees told another story.