Category: Flying Reports

John Douglass and Jeremy Knight have been up in Shennington, on Tuesday 5th, doing their cross country endorsements. The day started off with a long briefing on how to land in fields. If I remember correctly you just hang around a likely looking field hoping some unexpected lift saves your bacon.  If the lift fails to turn up by say 500′ just pop it on the ground – simples!  Actually now I think of it that’s completely wrong isn’t it?  Oh well, wotever.  Thoroughly briefed, we both planned routes round Bidford (can’t be found from the air), Bicester (can’t be found from the air) and Banbury (somebody moved it). John set off first and two hours later returned a fully fledged cross country competitor following an attempt to land down wind and an intimate liaison with the end of a field. Then it was Jeremy’s turn, and he too returned 2 hours later having passed despite forgetting to plan a landing until 300′ – still got it in just the right side of the hedge mind you 🙂  All in all a great fun day made better by the excellent thermals and great visibility. At one point there was even 8 up on the vario which isn’t bad in a motor glider that’s nearly as old as me.  I am sure we would both like to thank Shennington for making us so welcome and Bruno for some challenging but really fun instruction.

So the two of us are back at Shalbourne next weekend – you have been warned.

Jeremy Knight

Glad to report that both Jeremy and John passed their XC endorsement yesterday at Shennington……..well done the pair of you.

 

 

Now the fun really starts 🙂

There are those that claim spring has arrived when they hear their first cuckoo whereas any glider pilot knows that what really heralds the change in seasons is the first spotting of a beany hat at an airfield.  I can report that Wednesday started with only wooly hats in sight but by the afternoon a couple of those had been abandoned and replaced by beany hats. Welcome Spring!

A modest turnout for a Wednesday but still enough to keep 4 gliders busy.  No donuts but there were crème eggs on offer (oh Cadbury, why was it ever allowed to sell you to the Americans.  A clear case for nationalisation if ever there was one).  Ah yes, “what about the flying” do I hear you ask (or maybe you’ve just given up on this blog entry by now).

The day started with circuit bashing then Paul B (K13) and Chris K (Puchacz) stayed airborne while the rest of us continued our short flights.  They returned with Paul B taking the advantage to set longest flight target at 36 minutes.  A safe enough target it seemed as we continued to circuit bash until Rob J clocked up 40 minutes.  With gauntlet thrown down Paul B was forced to take to the air again and return 45 minutes later.  That looked unassailable as the rest of us failed to find thermals, until the penultimate flight of the day.  I was flying with Reg G and at 1,000′ we encountered the first thermal I had seen all day.  It was very weak so Reg handed control back to me to try and make something of it.  With real concentrated effort I managed to get to 1,800′ with a lot of drift.  Reg then used 800′ to get us back to where we started and found a thermal there.  This one with a lot more life in it (or he was making a better job at thermalling than I had).  It took us to 3,600′ and we landed (after a few stall exercises) 50 minutes after take-off.  Sorry Paul

Arriving at the airfield it was grey – there might even have been fifty shades of it.  However many shades, it did not look like anything other than circuits would be the order of the day.  Third launch was Chris Keating getting in some back seat practice in the Puchacz with myself providing ballast in the front seat (how different things look from there).  Off the launch and into some week lift in the bowl.  With any luck, I thought, 2,000’ may be possible if both the lift and he viz hold out.  Much to our astonishment we finally topped out at 2,800’.  In the absence of any other bright ideas we headed for a fire near Wilton Windmill.

Much to our surprise, it worked (thermal centering by smell) and back up we went to 3,000’ – in far less time than our previous climb.  Ever the gent, Chris decided it was time to return the glider.  When the vario started beeping Chris declared he would ignore it.  I spied the K13 launching and suggested that it would be kind to mark the thermal for the K13.  700’ higher and the K13 in circuit we concluded that our sacrifice wasn’t appreciated.  Time to practice side-slipping and land.  A most unexpected and delightful flight whilst all around were doing circuits.  As we landed the sky was beginning to open up and some blue could be seen in amongst the grey. 

From then on there were 11 more soaring flights of between 20 minutes and an hour.  Colin B taking longest flight honours with 1:03 in the Vega.  For such an unpromising day it proved to be a good start to SUGC’s “gliding camp”.  31 launches and 9 hours 45 minutes flown (the most total time for a day since mid October).