Category: Flying Reports

1st October marks the first day of a new flying year and time to start thinking about getting those annual checks out of the way.  Not an auspicious start to the new year with a scrub.  No flying provided some time to take a look at the stats for last year.

For the last 10 years I have been doing the data entry for the log sheets.  With all that data in a spreadsheet (all 27,043 entries) it’s not difficult to analyse the numbers.

Despite the appalling February (the least flying done in one month in 10 years – even worse than January past year when we were winchless) last (flying) year saw a record number of launches (3,127) but the 3rd best for hours flown.

For those who would like to know more there follows a set of graphs comparing the worst and best to last year.

Been a bit tardy on the blog updates but then there wasn’t much to say about the first 2 days.  Weather did not cooperate on them so no flying but we did replace a knackered old winch cable with a shinny new one.  First person to snarl them owes several of us a beer.  Sunday 16th was particularly frustrating as that was forecast to be the best day of the weekend.  As the day started the forecast said the grott would clear early afternoon.  When I arrived the Duracell Bunny (aka Chris B) had the field setup – gliders looking forlorn in the drizzle.  The BBC then predicted the clearance at 18:00.  We changed the cable, had lunch then looked at the dark sky (in the appropriate direction) and put the toys away.  On closing the hangar curtains shadows appeared – typical!

Wednesday didn’t exactly look promising but our stalwarts put in an appearance and we clocked up 36 launches.  With a (mostly) SW wind launches to 1,800′ in the 2-seaters and 1,900′ in the K8 were available.  Scraps of weak lift were around but nothing substantial.  Most flights were between 8 and 10 minutes, almost one third did better than that but, yet again, Martin S was cock of the roost with 20 minutes.  Highlight of the day was Simon R going solo.  Although a somewhat experienced pilot he commented that it must be at least 20 years since he last flew solo (somethings gone seriously wrong if there’s only one pilot in a commercial aircraft).  After flying 7 of us made a detour via The Plough to help Simon celebrate his solo (and enjoy the Wednesday night fish ‘ chips special)

 

A very good day – for those who appreciate cake.  Jonty celebrated his Silver with lardy cake plus there was a large chocolate cake, scones and caramel bites.  Oh and there was some flying.  it took a some luck (and a bit of skill) to soar with only 4 of the 27 launches exceeding 30 minutes.  Martin S proving to be the soaring maestro of the day.  With the cross wind Martin elected to take a check flight which took him 25 minutes (including a few spins) and later took the K13 for an hour and five.