Shalbourne Gliding – OLD WEBSITE
A friendly gliding club in Wiltshire
Tim flew 13 instructional flights including a half day course delivered in one hit; and ably supported by Ken P, Stephen O, Jim C, Richard D and self, supervised a day of 43 launches.
Carol, Phil and Chris B disappeared for over four hours somewhere overcast in the Midlands (gluttons for punishment?), the LS3 syndicate flew more comfortable triangles in the sun, while Selvam converted to the Vega and discovered classy soaring.
Apart from that, just another quiet day at Rivar.
Sunshine, soaring, climbs to 5,000′ plus donuts, Victoria sponge and ginger bread – is there any better way to spend a Wednesday?
The day started not particularly promising with circuit bashing and the possibility of showers in the afternoon. At about 13:00 the thermals switched on and lots of soaring to be had until mid-afternoon when it overdeveloped and cut off the sun and it became a bit more challenging to find climbs. It then cycled so by 16:00 the sun had warmed up the ground and we were off again. I was able to introduce Reg G to the delights of cloud streets. Abandoning a thermal at 4,000′ we carried on to the south of Newbury to the end of a street and then followed back to Conholt House and gained another 500′ in the process.
Steve B disappeared in HZD for over 3 hours, reporting that a disproportionate amount of that time was spent near Great Bedwyn in the down cycle fighting gravity. That gave him (easily) longest flight honours with Trevor G as runner up with 1:18. A very respectable 17 hours flown of 38 launches
After an initial good slot the sky began to change and it became a day of dodging showers.
Rob Jarvis set the bar far too high by managing to soar JMX for 36 mins the next longest flight was Jeremy and I in the Puchacz where we managed just 22 mins. From there onwards the flight times reduced as the cloud cover and greyness (?) increased.
After a few breaks due to the rain it became quite apparent that flying would be stopped.
With the approaching squall heading our way flying came to an abrupt end………. shortly afterwards the hail arrived.
As you can see we didn’t quite get the toys away before they got coated!
Despite this we flew managed to get in 19 flights including a trial lesson and a few check flights so all in all not too bad considering.
Lifted from Facebook:
Well – what an unexpectedly nice day’s flying! I (Liz) was expecting vaguely soarable in hazy sunshine with an early cut-off as cloud came up from the south, but in fact it was soarable all day under clear blue skies, we saw 7 on the vario at one point and there was lift absolutely everywhere round the airfield. All the serviceable club gliders were engaged all day, everyone went soaring, lots of annual checks were signed off, I hope everyone I flew with had a much fun as I did flying with you.
Crosscountry alert: some of the higher performance gliders made it all the way to…. Andover!! Those involved tell me it was somewhat quicker coming back – possibly the 25k Downwind Dash To Shalbourne Record got set today?!?