Shalbourne Gliding – OLD WEBSITE
A friendly gliding club in Wiltshire
Another good day at Rivar.
By late morning the blue was replaced with fluffy white clouds and some great climbs were on offer.
With cloudbase rising to around 5,000ft Steve B took HZD off to Butser Hill and back and Tony P and I took the Janus for a flight around Andover and Newbury.
Most enjoyed flights in excess of an hour…….
Was glorious
We flew – lots!
Special thanks to Nigel and Richard for flying the numerous Trial lessons and Ken for winching all day. Thanks to everyone who turned up for making it a fun day.
Nice day’s flying at the club today, only 16 launches but some note worthy achievements.
After the necessary check flights both Alan Saunders and Roland Pantling converted to the Vega…….
Roland took the Vega away for a 35 minute flight but unfortunately Alan didn’t contact any usable lift so was back in 5.
Alan more than made up for it by taking the Puchacz away on a hanger flight and achieved the longest flight of the day with a creditable 1hr 3 mins……
Carol was kept busy with flying with Martin, Bob and Tony P which left Jeremy and I to fly the Janus 🙂
I was reminded that there are things in life (well, flying from Rivar Hill) worse than westerly’s – easterly’s! The forecasts I had seen agreed the wind would be 90 degrees – the Met Office said it would stay that way but Dave Masson (Lasham weather guru) forecast it moving to 110. Given it’s safer to have the winch at the top end of the field in an easterly I decided to believe the Met Office – wrong! After launch 8 we changed ends. Peter E cleverly avoided the migration by staying airborne with a BGA TL. Alan P (in his Swallow) and Dennis G and myself (in the Puchacz) tried to do likewise by trying to join Peter’s thermal but failed miserably. The changing of ends was possible the most efficient I have seen with only 33 minutes between last launch from the south end to first launch at the north end.
After a couple more launches most were soaring in the murk, thermals conveniently triggered by the combine harvester activity in so many fields (none of them on fire though). Family Brind all enjoyed extended flights (2 in their K7 and 2 in the Puchacz). Steve B clocked up and hour and a half in his ASW15. Jeremy K discovered the secret of soaring his DG – looks like the master class with Chris B on Sunday paid off (hopefully Chris’s other speciality didn’t transfer too, mind, Chris hasn’t landed out for sometime). Trevor G did his usual of winching through the morning; rig late and take the longest flight of the day (2 hours 20). Highest climb I heard of was Andrew B (in his K7) to 3,700′.
Huge thanks to Peter E for working flat out in the back seat. Without his help I could not have got through the list. On the nibbles front Danish pastries made another appearance (this time I did spot the benefactor – thanks Bob S); some biscuits (contributor unknown to me) and some home made biscuits from David B.
All in all, an excellent day rounded off with the last gentle thermal of the day in which Bob S and I gained 650 feet at 18:00