Shalbourne Gliding – OLD WEBSITE
A friendly gliding club in Wiltshire
…but so far away. With a 3 day weekend plus a Wednesday left it should have been a cert to achieve the best May on record but with no flying on any of the days of the Bank Holiday weekend and today being non-flyable it was not to be. I should know better than to take British weather for granted.
The wind sock said it all – wind direction just right; wind strength enough. The ridge will be working, So, Bob B took the first launch in the K13 to confirm this. Only problem was, he returned after only 9 minutes. Everyone else threw themselves at the ridge only to report extensive sink and the best anyone achieved was 11 minutes. The bar was nudged a little higher when Ken R and Bill C did 12 minutes in their Duo Discuss which was matched by Paul B (plus me providing ballast) in the K13. On their freebie launch Ken and Bill stretched this to 18 minutes. Then five and a half hours after the first launch the dynamic Du0 stuck to the sky for 1:19. As they were spotted well away from the ridge it still hadn’t decided to work.
39 launches were made in pursuit of the elusive ridge lift.
Big blue hole surrounding Rivar Hill for most of the day. Naff all wind so not a lot of height off the launch within which to find that first essential climb. Despite this more than half the flights were more than 30 minutes with half of those being 2 or more hours. 9 private gliders rigged and one dropped in from Lasham.
Phil & Carol and Chris B ran around a 100km triangle. Steve B clocked up around 200km which included narrowly avoiding landing out landing near Harwell. Others went on walkabout following the energy. Several folks reported climbs to just over 5,000 feet. Second launch of the day was Alex J in the Vega which he returned 5 hours and 11 minutes later, having been to Aston Down and up to 5.000′. All three silver legs in one flight – congratulations Alex! Though he did manage to escape before the pub opened. 37:13 off 34 launches – quite a result.
Just in case no one flying on Sunday adds to the blog a quick summary from the log. 15:29 off 17 launches. Trevor G taking longest flight honours with 3:10 and Chris B not far being with 2:47.
As a result of the cracking weekend the hours flown this month is the second best number of hours we have seen for May in 10 years – and there’s still 4 potential flying days available.
The one day of the week that it wasn’t sunny – overcast and lively NEly. As a result a modest turnout but before we got started the first couple of hoops of the new shelter go erected and the K8 derigged and into the workshop for its ARC.
Despite the wind direction and speed the ridge didn’t work consistently. However, Ken R still managed to keep the Vega aloft for just over an hour. Three others managed around 20 minutes, one of which was me taking a rare solo. Thermals were rough and ran out of steam at 2,000′.