Category: Flying Reports

It was soarable from 11:30 to 16:30 and Stephen had gone moving furniture to the Principality!

By 13:00 all seven aircraft were airborne (four club + HBO & CDF plus an impressive appearance of AP’s gleaming ASW 15).

A welcome absence of gliders

In the meantime Bob and I got stuck into a formidable flying list including three requests for last minute annual checks…… No further comment necessary!

Then I really got stuck in JPC. My recently returned parachute was, as usual left with the webbing hanging loose for adjustment. The ‘chute I was wearing had the strap on the main lift webbing hanging loose. As I attempted to exit the back seat, the end fold of the webbing caught under the trimmer wire (see pic) and I had to sit down again to release it. Thus chastened I folded the hanging straps and slid them into the elastic retainer. Just as well I didn’t have to step out in a hurry!

Hung up – wrong!

 

Looped – right!

We never stop learning!

At last the spell unfriendly winds passed and all was calm.  A chance to fly.  Maybe not the most attractive flying conditions but after a period of no flying the inconvenience of a 1,000′ cloud base did not deter the Wednesday crew.  Well, did not deter most, some declined the opportunity of a 3 to 6 minute flight.  There was the opportunity for longer flights for those with the skill (and the luck), such as Bob B who clocked up a whole 8 minutes.  For most one chance to get their bum off the ground was sufficient so we were all packed up quite early, when a few of us took the time to open out and refold the cover for the MT shelter ready for hauling into place (once it can be figured out how/where to attach the ropes).  Edibles courtesy of Stan O and his bargain hunting in Asda.

A week of sunshine and high temperatures weren’t the only records being broken a number of record breaking launch counts were achieved. Sunday the 24th gave us an astonishing 55 launches – most number of launches for a February day (previous best was 47 in 2009). Across the month there were 20 launches (previous best 214 last year). Year-to-date (i.e. from start of October) 1,010 (previous best 991 in 2018). However, when it came to flying time the numbers weren’t far from average (below for the month and above year-to-date). Even with a week of summer into the month didn’t help as the high pressure that planted itself resulted in naff all soaring opportunities. For weekend flyers the month would have felt far from fab – only 3 days flown ( 2 weekends) in the month, while the mid-weekers flew every week (helped one week by “Wednesday” being movable).

For the mid-weekers it seemed that Rob J was the one to beat when it came to soaring. On the 6th his 31 minutes left everyone astonished when the best anyone else could manage was 12 minutes. On the 13th his 13 minutes only made second place to Rowland P’s 21 minutes. On the 21st he was at it again with 38 minutes while only 2 others (out of a total of 26 launches) just crept into double digits. On the 27th Rob’s 17 minutes was no match for Bill C’s 21 minutes. Yet again the most of the rest of us (40 launches in total) failed to make double digits.

We celebrated the last day of “summer” on the 27th in shirt sleeves and beany hats eating Tony P’s home baking plus donuts and sausage rolls (supplied by Stan O).

Great day at Shalbourne GC today. 53 flights, first solo by Tom Foale, Bronze theory test and Bronze flying test passed by Matt Beckett, Annual checks and P1 mutual checks completed by Nick Jelev, P1 mutual checks completed by Jeremy Knight and annual BI checks completed by Chris Bessent.
With the warm weather there were plenty of T shirts on show, lets hope 2019 is a great year for gliding.

Oh yes nearly forgot.
I also started Richard Dann’s instructor checks, unfortunately Richard encountered very strong sink at the wrong end of the airfield which weirdly coincided with a liberal (and firm!) application of full airbrake forcing him to land reciprocal. Richard tried his best to reduce the “sink” but to no avail 🙂