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Wednesday 9th Jan – Ridge day

Shalbourne Gliding ridge day

Normally at this time of year it’s all about who can do a double digit flight.  Not so today.  Out of the 35 launches (yes, 35!) only 5 were less than 10 minutes (and of those one was a training launch failure and the other a hangar lob).  So, today’s benchmark duration was 1 hour and both flights in the Duo Discuss and both in the LS3-17 exceeded an hour.  In addition to these two glider the Skylark was rigged and all 5 of the club fleet were busy.

Shalbourne Gliding ridge day

A steady, but hardly fierce, wind from the north provided ridge lift and triggered the occasional thermal.  My first 2 flights of the day (in the back seat of each Puchacz) was to 2,000′.  Chris K reported a launch to 2,300′ solo in EUF but I didn’t hear any reports of what launch heights were achieved in the K8,  gotta have been good.

24 folks got to sample this exceptional day and clocked up just 12 minutes shy of 14 hours of flying time.  At the end of the day we were treated to a glorious sunset.

Shalbourne Gliding sunset
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Happy New Year

What an excellent start to 2019 on 2nd January with no misting, 25 launches and more cakes than you could shake a stick at. 

2 types of home made cake, 5 packs of mince pies and big box of sausage rolls

Ken P set the time to beat early on with 10 minutes.  A couple of hours later I got a chance to find out if I could remember how to fly solo with a launch in the K8.  1,800′ launch and tickles of lift towards the gibbet and figures of eight on the east facing side of the bowl (we had a weak NEly) meant I managed to scrape out 15 minutes.  However, I was only able to revel in the glory for 8 minutes.  That was when Andy B landed the K13 and the log said 16 minutes.  Andy achieved something I wasn’t able to – a gain in height, a whole 50′

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December Mid-week Flying

Bit late in catching up with a couple of the very few flying days in December.  On Wednesday the 19th when we were able to take advantage of a sunny day and clocked up 25 launches when canopy misting stopped play before we ran out of daylight.

The usual up and down day for the time of year with 3 folks creeping into double digits with 10 minutes.  On the last flight of the day Steve B smashed that with a whole 13 minutes.

Unusually (for this December) there was some flying on the weekend.  Just the Saturday but flying was curtailed due to a hinch snarl up after 14 launches.

With the next Wednesday falling on Boxing Day we shifted to Thursday, which turned into the best day of the week despite the fog round and about.  Leaving Newbury in the gloom I held little hope for any flying but at Hungerford the fog disappeared.  Some great views with the pockets of fog around.



We managed to squeeze 28, short, flights out of the day with only Ken P getting to double digits with 10 minutes.

Overall, December was not exactly great but we’ve had worse but it was dire for weekend flying. Only 1 of the 5 flying days was a weekend accounting for 14 launches of the 100 launches.

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Saturday 5 Jan 2019

Great start to the soaring season with lots of people turning up to register their interest in the 2019 InterClub League season.  It looks like Shalbourne will be joining a mostly-Oxfordshire league which will have just the one fixture on Spring Bank Holiday weekend, following on from which there will be a club league contest running one weekend a month during the summer with Novice, Intermediate and Pundit tasks set.  We hope there will also be a Task Week at some point later in the summer.  Liz, Pete and Tim will be doing something ICL-related on their duty days from now on through the season.

And to celebrate this, we ignored the cold grey weather and started the year with David N being forced to fly first with Liz and then Phil – but to make up for this, Phil duly signed off his Bronze – congrats to David who after a whizz or two in a motorglider will soon be exploring the skies of southern England!!