Author: StephenO

A new month, a new solo.  Congratulations to Paul M who celebrated in the traditional way with a round of drinks in The Plough at the end of another busy Wednesday.

Start of flying was delayed as a battery needed to be fitted in the launch point wagon after thieves revisited us earlier in the week.  The rigging area at was somewhat busy and crowed with 6 private gliders getting ready in anticipation of a stonking day.  First 3 gliders launched soared away.  The next 3 found the sink resulting in short circuits.  After that, some were lucky some not.  The lucky ones reported climbs to 4,200′ and some strong lift.

First of the private gliders to launch was Steve B on his quest for a 300km.  He reappeared 4:30 hours later – having paid a visit to Kevil who obliged with an aerotow to get Steve home.  Turned out to be a challenging day, only managing around one third of the distance he was after.  Colin B set a more modest 100km for himself.  At 2:20 hours he stated that was probably the slowest 100km he had ever done reporting an ever changing sky with areas of good looking cloud turning blue at on a whim.

30 launches in total and over 20 hours of flying.  Both Bob B and myself were kept busy in the back seats.  A big thanks to Bob (without his help there would have been some disappointed folks) and honourable mentions to Ken H and Adrian N who did the lions share of winch/retrieve.  Tony P provided the home baking (blueberry muffins) and courgettes.

Another busy Wednesday

Another busy Wednesday – some great lift but big areas of 4 to 6 down.  Those launching into those sink holes were back on the ground very promptly.  The Duo Discuss flew for 3 minutes longer than the ASW15 HZD (2:44 vs 2:41) but the Duo used 2 launches.  Steve B took a single launch.  Cloud base eventually got to 5,000′.  38 launches with just 12 of those getting more than 30 minutes.

More than the usual number of visitors with a couple of friends of Paul P, a local pair of brothers plus families (one from Shalbourne the other Fosbury) and rounding off the day with a mini-TLE with 3 folks from Kennet Radio.  Many thanks to all the members who pitched in and kept us flying and to Ken R who helped out with some back seat flying.  Special thanks to Steve B, Martin S, Bob s and Adrian S who ignored the lure of the footie and stayed on to help get the Kennet Radio folks flown.  Hero of the day being Ken H who worked on club projects in the morning and winched most of the afternoon and up to the end.

The Wednesday cake club was well served with banana loaf from Tony P, donuts from Peter M and rice-chrispy cake from Catriona O (surplus supplies from a children’s party)

On Sunday after a couple of dozen launches the winch gave up the ghost.  James H was quickly on the case on Monday when he removed the transmission cooler to find it couldn’t have cooled anything as it was gummed up on the outside with an 1/8” oil/dirt mix and the fan was not working.  The transmission cooler was removed, but a fracture on the inlet pipe meant it was U/S.  A call to Skylaunch secured a spare cooler/fan and UPS delivery for Wednesday morning.  James (plus helpers) fitted the new bits and we were ready to go by early afternoon.  Gliders at the launch point when freak weather delayed the start of flying – I believe the meteorological term is “rain”.

While the winch was being worked on other members set to derigging the Vega, cutting grass and working on a method of securing the hangar curtain at the bottom (and possibly other jobs that I didn’t spot).

A huge, huge thanks to James H to sorting out a problem with the winch that, without his efforts, could have grounded us for some time.

We got flying shortly after 14:00.  Circuits were the order of the day with only 4 flights (out of 27) of around 30 minutes and Colin B taking the last flight of the day in the K8, returning just over an hour later (and then only landing because he’d seen the rest of the toys being put away).

Those with an interest in stats may like to know that June was a record breaking month for number of launches in the month of June and the second highest for the number of launches in any month –  450 launches.  Previous best was 365 in 2010.  June 2010, however, clocked up more flying time compare to this June (18 hours compare to 145)

Busy blue day with circuits being the order of the day.  Lots of areas of 4+ sink but without the compensating lift – what little lift there was around was weak and didn’t stay for a full 360.  At around 14:00 there was a glimmer of hop when Paul P did a record busting (for the day!) 21 minutes but it was back to circuits for lessor mortals.  About an hour later Rob J upped the anti with 44 minutes.  For the next 3 hours about half the launches resulted in soaring flights with Colin B as top-dog with 1 hour and reporting climbs to 2,900 (Ken H and Martin S were hot on his heels but just a few minutes shorter).

We handed over to the TLE crew to fly a scout group and ended up with a total of 55 launches for the day.